E-Magazine November Issue 2018

Sophos extends its partnership with Tech Data

Fujitsu launches PRIMEFLEX for VMware vSphere

17th VARINDIA STAR NITE AWARDS Friday, 23rd November 2018, Hotel Taj Palace, New Delhi

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OPTIPLEX 7060 MT

OPTIPLEX 7060MT (UBUNTU)

CORE i7-8700

CORE i7-8700

OPTIPLEX 7060MT (WIN 10 PRO)

CORE i7-8700

CORE i7-8700

KEY FEATURES Versaale, flexible and space saving | Built responsibly with premium materials and recycled plasscs Powerful performance | Boot up faster than ever Supports upto 3 displays without the need for addiional graphics cards Supports next generaaon AMD and NVIDIA discrete graphics oppons

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LATITUDE 5490

LATITUDE 7290

CORE i5-8250U

CORE i7-8650U

KEY FEATURES

KEY FEATURES

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NetApp powers DreamWorks with customized Data Fabric Hyperx unveils Fury RGB SSD in India

SEASON'S

GREETINGS

Boost to Online Sales this Festive Season

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Lenovo Transform 2.0 34pg

CommScope acquires Arris ARRIS has agreed to be acquired by CommScope in an all-cash deal valued at about $7.4 billion. The offer price was $31.75 a share. CommScope is a global leader that’s been shaping future networks

for 40+ years and fits seamlessly into the roadmap of Arris.

"Our products and services are complementary, not competitive. This will make ARRIS a stronger partner as we continue supporting our customers’ network expansions to deliver tomorrow’s connected experiences," said Bruce McClelland, CEO - ARRIS. ARRIS has always believed in the power of strategic acquisition as a catalyst to organic growth. For more than 20 years, Arris has grown and led its industries by finding best-in-class companies with outstanding people and integrating them in a way that ensures they continue to thrive.

Thoma Bravo takes control of Veracode

Broadcom is selling application security testing major Veracode for $950 million in a pure cash deal to private equity firm Thoma Bravo. Broadcom gained Veracode as a part of its acquisition of CA Technologies. With this the application security firm Veracode is changing ownership once again.

CA is essentially a company into software and provides services for everything from IT management to app development to cyber security. Way back in 2017, Veracode agreed to sell to CA Technologies for $614 million in cash. Now that the CA acquisition has closed, Broadcom has decided to move the Veracode business to private equity investor Thoma Bravo.

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HELLO INDIA

Readiness for the disruption that innovation brings!

As the speed of technological innovation continues to increase and with the competition delivering better, faster, and less down time, this is soon becoming a deciding factor in who wins and who loses in the software game. It is therefore important for organizations to take a research-based approach to digital transformation. IT is definitely continuing to play a critical role in digital transformation.

Digital and technology are different. Technology is one component that enables digital to exist. Knowing the fact that both the CIO and CMO need to work together, they have to bring the technology and experience together for better understanding the business challenges and bring the right business value. With this, the role of IT has elevated again with the demand of digital experience increasing.

The year 2018 has witnessed many challenges like the volatility in the market affecting indices and individual stocks, coupled with global and domestic cues. The rupee today stands at ₹74.39 per dollar, while a year ago on October 3, 2017, one US dollar would get you ₹65.45. With this, all the companies who depended fully on importing have been impacted very badly.

Going forward, every brand has to re-imagine each part of their organization to laser focus on delivering stand-out experiences or risk failing in no time. Reason, the IT and threat landscapes will continue to evolve in 2019. I expect 2019 to arrive with ample new and existing challenges for Indian enterprises, from misuse of the social media to security vulnerabilities in the cloud. While more Indian enterprises are recognizing the threat that cyber-attacks can pose to their organization, many are not sure about the extent to which they need to be covered.

The report says that there are increased threats targeting the industry, and so it’s important to stay attuned to cyber-enabled physical threats to the IT supporting systems. A far more common threat that security teams in the industry must be prepared to defend against is cyber espionage.

There will also be increasing number of opportunities for attackers in the cloud. With cloud, there’s a new, and often expanding attack surface that can be left undefended or without the proper safeguards in place to protect important data.

The report further elaborates that attribution and accountability are two of the biggest sticking points when it comes to winning the war in cyberspace. Without risks and repercussions for malicious activity carried out on the internet, attackers will keep attacking and organizations will keep getting breached. The reason of widening skill gap and lack of trained experts is to fill security roles.

However, the good news is that thinking around this challenge is changing.

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CONTENTS EVENT | 30 Website: www.varindia.com

Publisher: Deepak Kumar Sahu Editor: S Mohini Ratna Executive Editor: Dr. Vijay Anand Copy Editor: C. M. Dutta Deputy Editor: Samrita Baruah Sub - Editor: Aparna Mullick Correspondent: Lopamudra Das 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 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: K. Parthiban F1, Meadows Green Apartments, 64, Chetty Street 1st Cross, Mel Ayanambakkam, Chennai - 600 095 Cell No. : 98400 55626 E-mail: parthiban@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: B Kiran Dutta 123 SDF Building, Block GP Sector V, Salt Lake City, Kolkata - 700091 Mobile: 08100298033, E-mail: sunil@varindia.com Mobile: 09903088480, E-mail: kiran@varindia.com Printed and Published by Deepak Kumar Sahu on behalf of M/s. Kalinga Digital Media Pvt. Ltd. and Printed at Pushpak Press Pvt. Ltd. Shed No. 203 - 204, DSIDC Complex, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase-I, New Delhi-110020 and Published at A-84A/3 Rose Apartment, Paryavaran complex, IGNOU Road, New Delhi - 110030, Editor - S Mohini Ratna.

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5G steals the limelight at the India Mobile Congress 2018 ROUND ABOUT

FACE TO FACE

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38

US by-election: What will be the fallout?

CHANNEL CHIEF 10

“Our 3DEXPERIENCE platform speaks the 3D language that is familiar to engineers”

FACE TO FACE 40

FACE TO FACE 24

Quantum handling large data workflows in demanding big data environments

25

Brightstar aligning its focus to drive a cloud enabled business in India

26

“Expanding attack surfaces are causing organizations to rethink their NAC approach”

INDUSTRY WATCH 28

Lenovo Transform 2.0 Forges new partnerships as part of its Transformation strategy

EVENT 30

5G steals the limelight at the India Mobile Congress 2018

VAR MOBILITY 36

WI-FI will succeed in the country only when everyone thinks of it as a digital utility

“We have terabytes of data to think ahead of the curve” - Atul Dhablania

“The industry is spending to safeguard data to prevent major breaches”

COVER STORY 42

Boost to Online Sales this Festive Season

VAR ANALYSIS 48

India Software Market: Good Times Ahead

LEAD STORY 50

Is India Inc. getting impacted by the #MeToo effect?

VAR SECURITY 52

F-secure bringing in the right focus to address security in the country

MOVERS & SHAKERS

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November 2018

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ROUND ABOUT

US by-election: What will be the fallout?

I am writing on recent by-elections held in the US. When President Trump was elected in 2016, someone close to me said wryly that he stopped predicting things since his predictions had gone haywire after Trump’s historic win. On the eve of the election day, media, political consultants and major polls predicted that Hillary Clinton would win by landslide. The only issue debated was the size of victory, and who would be the secretary of state and other high-ranking political appointees. Trump was able to articulate his vision concisely and clearly - Make America Great Again, while Clinton’s message was vague and was changing on a regular basis. She tried to sell her resume in long paragraphs, instead of a clear vision. Although Trump was criticized by liberal press on his views on immigration, his views were largely distorted by media. He supports legal immigration. His views on immigrants are more conditioned by the belief that the US sacrificed a lot more for other countries than it should have, economically, politically and perhaps emotionally. Trump had not run for political office in the past. He did not cut his teeth in the political cauldron in order to modulate his thoughts and actions to suit each situation, nor did he learn to speak in politically Correct language. His outlook and mannerisms are that of a businessman and that actions are quick and swift and cannot mask his emotions and behavior, which come spontaneously. In that sense, when he mimics an Indian, Chinese or Japanese, it should be just wished away and not to be used as a fodder to project him as a dictator or an obsessed man.

He has his own rules and borders as to what to do, what to think and he sets his own limits.

Did the by-election result disappoint President? The pitch of the Democrats and pollsters was that there would be a “blue wave” in their electoral prospects. That did not happen as Republicans still have the upper hand in Senate, which has 100 seats.

What I am trying to figure out is whether he would be as active as before? Going by what he had done immediately after the election results were out-firing the Attorney General and replacing office with his own chosen man - does indicate that President Trump cannot be tempered by the vicissitudes of the time. He is as aggressive as before. The Trump administration on 8th November unveiled tough new rules on the asylum process. The new rule, announced by the Justice Department and Homeland Security, declares that immigrants who illegally cross the border will be stripped of their eligibility to receive asylum in the U.S. The action is one of the first taken by Matthew Whitaker in his newly appointed role as acting attorney general. Whitaker, who was Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ chief of staff, got the promotion after Trump fired Sessions a day earlier.

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Let me come to the brass tacks. Will all these affect the US administration and apply a brake to the heightened pace of growth it is experiencing now? US economy is booming beyond expectations, unemployment rate of 3.5% is lowest during the last fifteen years. As a business man first, President’s apprehensions are more regarding square off of the tax benefits to the tune of US$ 1.5 trillion he had given to the corporations in the next 10 years so. That can work well only when the corporations are given environs to work under a low tax regime.

Yet another issue that is being hotly debated is whether the President can come back into the office in 2020, when the general elections are due. I feel, no one can now write off Trump since he can bounce back. Of course, he has to improve upon his ratings considerably. He has created a good track record in the economics and business side. The unemployment rate is at an all-time low. The immigration card he played has partly paid off since the wage rate has gone up in the US since the employers have to appoint only the locals and not the illegal migrants for all and sundry jobs. With the judges handpicked by the President, it may not be a big deal to sail through the rough waters in the judiciary as well.

What will be the impact on India? Hopefully, the US administration would go slow in making granting of H1-B visas less stringent as also in granting green card to begin with for professionals and allowing their spouses to work there. Also, there are talks going on for lifting the additional tariffs on steel and aluminum. It is pertinent that India did not retaliate against the imposition of higher duties unlike China and other countries. That may weigh odds in favor of India.

Coming back to the question whether there will be any policy change on the part of Trump administration to build bridges with other countries in the changed environs. How can you imagine the US growing in a silo on a sustainable basis? It no longer can produce and consume for itself. How can it market its products and services, if the rest of the world live in a squeezed ambience? I am sure that President Trump realizes this and perhaps, that is also the key to reelection in 2020. n

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CHANNEL CHIEF

“Our 3DEXPERIENCE platform speaks the 3D language that is familiar to engineers” The 3DEXPERIENCE platform is helping companies across the world to develop a digital thread to enable continuity and collaboration across the business with the development of new manufacturing technologies and techniques. Guido Porro, Vice President - Worldwide Value Solutions - Indirect Channel, Dassault Systèmes shares more of its prospects with VARINDIA and how its channel is positioned to address new customer demands and requirements Dassault Systèmes has not only elaborated in terms of its industrial concepts but has also executed the 3DEXPERIENCE platform which is ramping up heavily. The 3DEXPERIENCE platform is able to integrate with all its customers who are looking for a meaningful experience.

“This is something that many companies are still planning but we have actually executed it,” says Guido Porro, Vice President - Worldwide Value Solutions - Indirect Channel, Dassault Systèmes. “Our platform speaks the same language as of the engineer and the technical team – the language of the 3D. Our solutions are bringing different type of value for different types of customers. We are now proposing this value to the start-ups.

They want something that is ready to be used from Day 2 and so they have decided to go for this platform.”

Customers from an engineering point of view are experiencing very complex problems. But Dassault Systèmes is offering such solutions that are viable for large customers too,if they want to go for a broader approach in terms of integrating the processes.

Channel eco-system of Dassault…

Like any other business, partners are the backbone of Dassault’s business and they are investing a lot to generate scalability. “Partners are not only selling but also implementing the projects and for this they are scaling up their competency. This is helping them to move ahead of just selling PLM or CAD solutions. They also have room to improve in terms of becoming business consultants for their customers so that they understand the internal business processes of the customers and then customise the products for them. For this they are building their skills and competency to understand the areas of improvement for value engagement. This is a big transformation that our partners are looking at,” says Guido.

Dassault Systèmes gives its partners the full visibility of its long-term growth roadmap and vision, so that they can accordingly plan their next step. The company is also giving them training in the design area and also support from a marketing perspective.

“One of the strengths of Dassault Systèmes is that we are here to stay.

If companies like Boeing, Airbus, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) are selecting us, they know that we have the capabilities. Our partners also are the trusted advisors for our customers. The aim is to build a lasting relationship with our customers,” observes Guido.

Dassault Systèmes has tiered its partners into Platinum Partners, Gold Partners and Silver Partners. Though Silver is the entry level but even attaining this level is quite an achievement. There are significant criteria to become a Silver Partner.

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Guido Porro Vice President - Worldwide Value Solutions Indirect Channel, Dassault Systèmes The company also has a direct salesforce that is typically taking care of the large customers of Dassault. “We call it Business Transformation channel. Then there comes the distribution channel (which is the indirect or the value solution channel) who are the resellers of our software. The global value solution channel has seen a significant growth in the last quarter, i.e. a clear understanding of how the 3DEXPERIENCE is bringing a lot of value to our customers. It is also our belief that we do not treat our customers as customers but our partners,” he explains.

Dassault Systèmes has vertical specific solutions; its software is not going to be successful if they do not speak the language of different industries. It has identified 12 industries and accordingly hasdesigned different solutions and strategies for each of them. “We call it industry solution experience. We have verticals like Energy processing, industrial equipments, manufacturing, architectural engineering & construction,retail,” says Guido.

Dassault Systèmes had flagged off the 3DEXPERIENCE on WHEELS 2018 campaign in Pune recently. It is a nationwide campaign aimed at connecting with small and medium enterprises and industrial hubs in tier II cities showcasing the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. The 3DEXPERIENCE platform is a business experience platform available on premise and on cloud to enable customers to create delightful experiences for consumers. The platform offers end-to-end engineering, manufacturing and business capabilities to enable SMEs generate efficiency, cost effectiveness and reductions in accumulated waste by harnessing the data essential to the operation of their enterprise. Dassault Systèmes also announced a cloud offering of Electro Mobility Accelerator to accelerate product and ecosystem development process in electric vehicle start-ups.

“We see a double digit growth for Dassault worldwide. Specifically for India, the first digit of this double digit is not going to be 1. It is not only achievable but we have actually done it. We see a clear sign of growth on both sides – the large customers and the SMBs on the back of domestic growth, mergers & acquisitions. India is a potential opportunity in terms of start-ups and it happens to be the 3d international hub for growth of start-ups,” sums up Guido. n Samrita Baruah samrita@varindia.com

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HOT BYTES

Togofogo partners with Lenovo to sell Riverbed announces RCPE Program for digital refurbished laptops performance

Togofogo has announced an exclusive partnership with Lenovo.

Togofogo will now be selling Lenovo’s refurbished laptops with one-year brand warranty on its website.

Lenovo’s laptops are refurbished at Aforeserve’s refurbishment centre. Aforeserve is one of India’s oldest and largest chains with more than 4,500 engineers that have been providing quality repair and refurbishment services for defective ICT devices, including those with expired warranties, for the past two decades. Aforeserve provides Lenovo a comprehensive solution starting from refurbishment to sales and after-sales service at a single place.

Having successfully sold 5, 00,000 units of refurbished mobile phones in the Indian market, Togofogo now targets the second-largest category in the refurbished market, after mobiles. The laptops being sold on Togofogo include Quality Check, Certification, Extended Warranty, and Repair Services, maintaining the uniqueness of the platform.

SUSE and Alibaba Cloud to meet demand for SAP workloads on public cloud

SUSE and Alibaba Cloud are expanding their global strategic partnership in public cloud services in response to rapidly-growing customer demand for cost-effective and flexible SAP workloads on public cloud. Alibaba Cloud has joined the SUSE Cloud Service Provider program and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications are now available in the Alibaba Cloud Marketplace for customers worldwide.

"Modern SAP systems running critical workloads need to meet the highest standards of availability for their SAP services running in customer data centers or on public cloud environments," said Naji Almahmoud, SUSE Vice-President of Global Alliances. "We are excited about our partnership with Alibaba Cloud, as it offers customers agility, pay-as-yougo capabilities and system availability up to 99.999 per cent.”

Organizations can now run mission-critical applications on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications – a leading platform for SAP HANA and SAP S/4HANA – in the flexible and innovative Alibaba Cloud services.

PHDCC&I meeting rooms to be powered by Barco

Barco has entered into partnership with the PHD Chamber of Commerce & Industry to make their meeting room experience more secure and seamless. As part of this partnership, PHD Chamber’s four meeting rooms across Delhi, Chandigarh and Lucknow will now be powered by Barco’s state-of-the-art wireless presentation system – ClickShare.

Barco ClickShare, a key technology upgrade for meeting rooms across businesses, is known for making meeting rooms more flexible, efficient and secure. The product ensures a wireless, convenient and true collaborative experience in conference and meeting rooms. With ClickShare, customers can now share their device screen whether laptop or mobile on a presentation screen seamlessly, transforming a meeting into a completely new and user-friendly experience.

Commenting on the tie-up with the PHD Chamber, Rajiv Bhalla, MD, Barco India, said, “ClickShare is a unique offering and is a great solution to real challenges that our customers face in meeting or conference rooms today. We are excited to partner with the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry and deploy ClickShare in their meeting rooms.”

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Riverbed has announced the availability of the Riverbed Certified Performance Engineering (RCPE) Program designed for all IT professionals — from technical staff to leadership to CXO — involved in managing digital performance across end-user experience, applications, networks, infrastructure, support desk and operations.

The RCPE program focuses on building career skill sets and capabilities in digital performance to enable significant business results and outcomes across different roles in an organization and at differing levels of technical experience. The program delivers a solution-oriented approach on the principles and capabilities of digital performance engineering and management by leveraging a combination of eLearning, instructor-led classes, and hands-on labs that replicate real-world scenarios.

Dan Smoot, Chief Customer Officer, Riverbed, says, “The new Riverbed Certified Performance Engineering (RCPE) Program is a first-ofits-kind training curriculum that teaches career-based skills and capabilities in digital performance.”

Inspira and Algonox to offer cognitive automation solutions

Inspira Enterprise has entered into partnership with Algonox Technologies specialized in Cognitive Automation. This partnership will help clients achieve differentiating operation efficiencies by leveraging AI-ML, and Robotic Process Automation solutions. Inspira will offer customers across India and MEA with access to best-of-breed Cognitive Solutions and products.

Disruptive technologies have ensured Enterprises to significantly digitize operations. However, it is possible only by embedding right cognitive elements to automate business processes.

“We are very excited to formalize our relationship with Algonox.

Inspira will leverage products, solutions and capabilities of Algonox to assist clients in E2E automation of complex and critical business processes.

This is a perfect match of Algonox technology expertise and Inspira’s sales network and industry relationships to widely promote cognitive solutions across the globe. We look forward to supporting our global clientele as they deploy, scale and manage their investment in Cognitive Automation and RPA solutions,” says Manoj Kanodia, CEO, Inspira Enterprise.

Skybox Security adds RAH Infotech as its national distributor in India

Skybox Security has appointed RAH Infotech as its national distributor. The software company experienced 433-per cent year-overyear growth in APAC for 2017, including 350- per cent growth in India.

With security initiatives becoming increasingly difficult to manage, CISOs are seeking solutions like Skybox’s that are integrated and address multiple challenges. The Skybox Security Suite integrates with more than 120 networking and security technologies that companies are already using to provide the comprehensive attack surface visibility and intelligence in one solution, covering on-premise, multi-cloud and IoT networks. The Suite also automates many core security processes in vulnerability and threat management, and firewall and security policy management, such as network path analysis, attack simulation and change management.

The Skybox APAC channel program enables value-added distributors (VADs), managed security service providers (MSSPs), resellers and system integrators to meet the needs of the market by deploying and offering services that leverage the Skybox Security Suite.

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HOT BYTES

FarEye announces platform to run distribution Sophos extends its partnership with Tech Data Sophos has entered into strategic channel partnership with Tech Data in order to offer its award-winning security products to customers and movement of finished products

FarEye has designed an end-to-end platform to run distribution logistics and optimize goods movement. FarEye On-Demand solution ensures that every received order gets accepted and catered in minimum time with least logistics cost.

It allows businesses to define customer-centric process and cater to on-demand requests with its unique broadcasting feature. As soon as an order is received, the manager broadcasts the job hub-wise and/or location-wise so that the rider nearest to a delivery location can revert with order acceptance and the job gets auto-assigned to the available rider.

Kushal Nahata, CEO & Co-Founder, FarEye, says, “With our efficient solution, we are helping businesses by digitalizing their Demand and Inventory planning process. Besides, it enables us to shorten the delivery time from next day to same day, transform the entire restock process to an ondemand service, and create full transparency for our clients. The rise of e-commerce logistics and increased domestic consumption will lead the way for the industry in the coming years.”

Xiaomi opens its largest Mi Home store in India

Xiaomi has launched a new Mi Home store in the prominent Indiranagar area of Bengaluru. Spanning across 6,000 sq. ft and covering two floors, the new Mi Home stands to be the largest Mi Home store of the nation. It is also the finest Mi Home in terms of retail design grandeur.

Sporting modern architectural design, the new Mi Home outlet stands out as an iconic structure with a futuristic concept. The building showcases unique, edgy patterns and was constructed using eco-friendly materials.

The new Mi Home is also equipped with special solar-powered charging stations as part of the brand’s effort to implement pro-environment measures. In addition, the interiors project a minimalistic look wherein neutral shades of white and grey are applied ensuring absolute attention to the products on display.

Additionally, the store offers unique spaces such as the engagement zone and its very own Mi Home cafe wherein customers and Mi Fans can host regular meet-ups or spend quality time on their personal work and reflection.

within the ASEAN region, including network, endpoint, data, identity and firewall protection.

Tapping into Tech Data’s extensive network and regional market experience, this distribution partnership is a reflection of Sophos’ commitment to make its cybersecurity products and offerings more widely available for its customers in the ASEAN region, at a time when cybersecurity threats are on the rise globally.

Naresh Desai, Vice-President, Specialist Business Unit, Asia-Pacific, Tech Data, says, “Tech Data believes that the strength of next-generation security solutions lies in a proactive approach to security threats, and we arm our partners with the technology and knowledge they need to protect their customers. Our partnership with Sophos, a global cybersecurity leader, enables us to further strengthen our security offerings and successfully address the cybersecurity needs of our 5,000+ partners in ASEAN.”

NetApp powers DreamWorks with customized Data Fabric

NetApp has announced it has partnered with DreamWorks to develop and oversee the studio’s customized Data Fabric approach. Through the partnership, NetApp’s engineers are working closely with DreamWorks’ IT team to optimize the Data Fabric and meet the studio’s unique, rapidly-expanding data storage and management needs. The incredibly detailed and immersive graphics that DreamWorks artists create represent enormous volumes of data and add the challenge of complexity to the DreamWorks IT environment.

“NetApp is the leader in hybrid cloud data services,” said Kate Swanborg, Senior Vice- President of Technology Communications and Strategic Alliances, DreamWorks. “Having used NetApp solutions on all of our CG animated feature films, DreamWorks trusts NetApp to deliver the data services our filmmakers rely on to innovate today and tomorrow, as they unleash creativity and dream new realities.”

Rashi Peripherals from now on to be known as RP tech India

Rashi Peripherals has unveiled a new corporate identity. The company will now be known as “RP tech India” (a division of Rashi Peripherals), while its new logo personifies forward and futuristic thinking.

The new corporate avatar signifies company’s ambitious growth and expansion plans.The logo is the amalgamation of three strong colours – Purple, Violet and Grey. The bold colour combination signifies the

Kaspersky Lab to work together with Huawei in Cloud Security space

Kaspersky Lab and Huawei have jointly announced that they would cooperate fully in the field of cloud security at the recent HUAWEI CONNECT 2018, which was held on 12th October in Shanghai, China.

The cooperation will seamlessly integrate Kaspersky Lab’s security solutions with Huawei's cloud computing solution, delivering a more comprehensive approach to security and building a more secure ecosystem while providing simplified management and superior performance to data centers and desktop cloud customers.

MatveyVoytov, Global Cloud Security Director, Kaspersky Lab, says, “The newly-launched integrated solution is hosted on Kaspersky Hybrid Cloud Security and Huawei FusionSphere Products. Kaspersky Hybrid Cloud Security provides a unified security for any stage or scenario in the cloud. The solution is suitable for cloud migration and native cloud scenarios, protecting the physical and virtualized workloads of the enterprise, whether it is running locally, in a data center, or in a public cloud.”

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company’s forward, futuristic thinking. This colour combination indicates that the RP tech India as an organization is rich in Credibility, Strength and Professionalism. The two colours’ sleek font states that the company is now turning from existing to a new dynamic success phase.

Kapal Pansari, Director, RP tech India, says, “As our business horizon continues to expand, we believe that it is the right time to reinforce our fundamental values and core strengths. We are very excited to announce the launch of our new name and logo that illustrates and amplifies our aspiration and futuristic thinking.”

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ON THE RAMP

Hyperx unveils Fury RGB SSD in India

HyperX has launched its first SSD in India with RGB – HyperX FURY RGB SSD. This performance-rich SSD is designed for a better gaming experience while brightening and enhancing the rigs with more colour and LED lighting. It utilizes 3D NAND technology for better power efficiency and durability, delivering high read and write speeds, 10 times faster than a 7,200RPM hard drive. The HyperX FURY RGB SSD is available in HyperX network of retail and e-tail stores at MRPs of Rs.9, 349/-, Rs.15, 330/- and Rs.27, 230/- for 240 GB, 480 GB and 960 GB, respectively.

HyperX FURY RGB SSD is also available as an upgrade bundle kit at MRPs of Rs.11, 315/-, Rs.17, 300/- and Rs.29, 200/-for 240GB, 480GB and 960GB capacities, respectively. It is backed by a limited 3-year warranty with free technical support.

“HyperX strives to create innovative high-quality storage solutions that suit the needs of a variety of users,” said Vishal Parekh, Marketing Director, HyperX India. “HyperX FURY RGB SSD features 3D NAND technology and high-quality lighting that will definitely offer exceptional performance to the end-users.”

GIGABYTE launches Z390 motherboard series and RTX 20 series graphics cards

GIGABYTE has introduced its new Z390 motherboard series, officially launched on 8th October as well as their RTX 20 Series graphics cards announced more than a month ago, but are only recently available in India.

Among the showcased products is the flagship Z390 AORUS Master, an Intel Z390 chipset motherboard designed for all cores above 5GHz with 12 Phases IR Digital VRM, and a much-improved Fins-Array Heatsink, RGB Fusion, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Triple M.2 with Thermal Guards, ESS SABRE HIFI 9118, Intel GbE LAN with cFosSpeed, and Front and Rear USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C. GIGABYTE also showcased its latest NVIDIA Turing-based graphics cards – the top-of-the- line GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 2080 Ti GAMING OC 11G that comes in a sleek carbon look and features three 82mm alternate-spinning WINDFORCE fans and 6 copper heat pipes that cover the GPU and the VRAM for superior cooling.

Airtel announces its Google Assistant-based Digital Customer Care

Airtel smartphone customers will now able to get instant resolution to their frequent account- related queries through the Google Assistant.

In yet another industry first, Airtel has collaborated with Google to truly simplify its customer service experience by integrating its customer care with the Artificial Intelligence-powered Google Assistant.

This new cutting-edge feature will allow customers to have rich conversational experiences with Airtel.

These features are right now available in English, but, going forward, Airtel will roll it out in multiple regional languages to help deliver an even more personalized experience to millions of Indians and encourage them to get online. Similarly, Airtel will continue to track what questions customers are asking and enable responses to them via Google Assistant, thus improving the flexibility and robustness of the Airtel voice Action.

The initiative is a part of Project Next – Airtel’s digital innovation program, which is aimed at transforming customer experience across all of its services and touch points.

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Cloudera announces industrialization of AI

strategy

for

Cloudera has announced its strategic vision to accelerate the industrialization of enterprise machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI), making the process of building, scaling, and deploying enterprise machine learning automated, repeatable and predictable.

Through Cloudera's platform for ML, Cloudera Data Science Workbench development environment and applied AI advising and research offerings, Cloudera has enabled hundreds of enterprises to gain greater insight from their data, detect anomalous activity and predict events. Now, Cloudera intends to expand its customers' success in these areas with a vision for industrializing AI. Cloudera customers will be able to automate decisions at enterprise scale.

Hilary Mason, General Manager, Machine Learning, Cloudera, says, "The modern enterprise will be a network of intelligent applications powered by machine learning and AI. Right now the effort that goes into building ML and AI solutions is heavily skewed towards allocating and maintaining underlying infrastructure, instead of building a compounding set of capabilities that can deliver increased business values."

Synechron announces AI Data Science Accelerators to address BFSI sector

Synechron has announced the launch of its AI Data Science Accelerators for Financial Services, Banking and Insurance (BFSI) firms.

These four new solution accelerators help financial services and insurance firms solve complex business challenges by discovering meaningful relationships between events that impact one another (correlation) and cause a future event to happen (causation).

Following the success of Synechron’s AI Automation Program – Neo, Synechron’s AI Data Science experts have developed a powerful set of accelerators that allow financial firms to address business challenges related to investment research generation, predicting the next best action to take with a wealth management client, high-priority customer complaints, and better predicting credit risk related to mortgage lending. The Accelerators combine Natural Language Processing (NLP), Deep Learning algorithms and Data Science to solve the complex business challenges and rely on a powerful Spark and Hadoop platform to ingest and run correlations across massive amounts of data to test hypotheses and predict future outcomes.

Dahua presents HDCVI 5.0 technology with surveillance insights

Dahua Technology has presented HDCVI 5.0, the latest installment to a revolutionary series for the global surveillance industry initiated in 2012, which brings clarity, intelligence and security to an unprecedented level.

HDCIV 5.0 consists of HDCVI Active Deterrence Camera, 4K/5MP/1080P Starlight HDCVI Camera, 1080P Full-colour HDCVI Camera and HDCVI 4K and H.265 AI XVR. When used combined, they will take care of your security problems in the following five aspects.

HDCVI 5.0 can detect potential risks based on configurable motion, tripwire and intrusion rules. The system will send alarms to users when unwanted moves occur.Furthermore, the system boasts intelligent analyses that filter minor objects like animals, insects, leaves, light, raindrops, etc, thus reducing false alarms and allowing users to focus on real threats that are people and vehicles.

Fully guaranteeing accuracy and process efficiency, the system supports up to 24 pic/s face recognition and 20 databases with up to 100,000 face images in total.

Sonicwall India & SAARC celebrates with top performing partners 15th - 17th November 2018, Kingsbury Hotel, Colombo

SCOTT MCCRADY VP Sales, APJ & Global Strategic Partnering

The key message from Scott highlighted on how SonicWALL brought Innovation in addressing customer requirement and setting higher benchmarks in the security industry, APJ business objectives and India growth story. He congratulated India partners for exceptional growth last year and this trend continues even this year. India is SonicWALL’s key priority country and major investment has been planned in coming quarters.

Dmitriy presented key announcements from SonicWALL and how new technology can benefit partners in solving customers problem. He presented how Sonicwall Unified security Platform (Capture Cloud Platform) can advantage customers & partners to manage network with add on features. Sonicwall has demonstrated security leadership in the NSS lab report.

DMITRIY AYRAPETOV Executive Director, Product Management

In a recently held event at Hotel Kingsbury, Colombo, top 40 partners from India and SAARC countries attended. The aim of the summit was to recognise and reward the best partners of SonicWALL

KEY HIGHLIGHTS SonicWALL formally announced the new Capture Cloud Platform capabilities that include Zero-Touch Deployment and Secure SD-WAN (software-defined WAN) designed for distributed enterprises and organizations with hybrid cloud environments. SonicWALL also announced the enhancements to Capture Security Center with personalized Risk Meters that deliver company-specific, real-time threat intelligence and risk scoring, as well as Hyper-V, Azure and AWS support for its virtual firewall series.

The event also witnessed recognising the key contributing partners for 2018-19.

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For More Information: www.sonicwall.com

November 2018

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ON THE RAMP

Acer launches Aspire 5s and Swift 3 laptops

Acer India has unveiled the new thin and light laptops – Aspire 5s and Swift 3 14” and 15.6” 2019 edition in India. Featuring narrow bezel display for full cinematic experience and metallic built, the sleek laptops are designed for users who want outstanding portability, solid performance, and a touch of style. With the latest Intel Whiskey Lake processor Aspire 5s delivers next-generation performance with great efficiency and style.

Chandrahas Panigrahi, CMO & Consumer Business Head, Acer India, says, “We are thrilled to introduce our new range of thin and light laptops in India.

We have been receiving an overwhelming response for our Aspire and Swift series notebooks, and we are now pushing the limits by introducing the notebooks in the Aspire and Swift series that are thinner, lighter and more powerful with true cinematic screen. WhileAspire 5s is one of India’s first ultrathin notebook that features Intel’s Whiskey Lake Processor and offers astonishing performance, Swift 3’s both 14-inch and 15.6-inch editions aim to offer outstanding performance and all-day battery life to the users.”

Zoho launches HRM App to simplify Employee Query Management

Zoho has announced a major update to its HR management system, Zoho People 4.0. This new version has significantly enhanced the core functionality of the application, providing employers with a centralized, integrated system that facilitates better connectivity between HR and employees. It allows HR departments to manage custom services, tailor complex leave policies to specific workplace scenarios, run advanced analytics, and handle employee queries through a centralized case management system.

Raja Ramasamy, Product Manager, Zoho People, says, “Over the past decade, Zoho People has enabled HR departments across the globe to manage attendance, leave, performance, documents and forms from a single platform. With this new version, we have set the bar higher by focusing on the ways technology cannot just help the HR team do their work more efficiently, but also support better employee experience. The Case Management feature, for example, allows HR admins to streamline employee issues and address them quickly, while enabling employees to have a better visibility into the status of their query."

Fujitsu launches PRIMEFLEX for VMware vSphere Fujitsu has introduced PRIMEFLEX for VMware vSphere. The fully pre-configured, pre-tested and validated package of hardware, software, integration and support services is designed to provide a fast track to maximum IT performance and agility while also reducing complexity for VMware-based virtual infrastructures.

Virtual infrastructures give businesses the full flexibility to scale, compute and storage performance independently according to changing requirements, all within a self-contained, ready-to-run solution. Inside, Fujitsu PRIMEFLEX for VMware vSphere combines the latest Fujitsu PRIMERGY RX dual-socket servers with a choice of either Fujitsu ETERNUS AF all-flash or ETERNUS DX hybrid storage.

The new PRIMEFLEX infrastructure is focused on enabling customers to reduce overall operating costs. Not only does it use the most energy-efficient server and storage components, but also standardized firmware management and a ready-to-run system save on administrative time. The versatile Fujitsu Software Infrastructure Manager (ISM) manages system resources including network switches from Extreme Networks and Broadcom, automates service provisioning and simplifies day-to-day infrastructure management tasks.

Western Digital launches 15TB Ultrastar DC HC620 SMR HDD

Western Digital has announced the highest capacity HDD, the 15TB Ultrastar DC HC620 host-managed SMR HDD. The Ultrastar DC HC620 delivers an unprecedented capacity point with a time-to-market advantage for customers who have invested in, and continue to take advantage of the benefits of SMR. The new Ultrastar DC HC620 HDD further expands Western Digital’s broad range of enterprise-class storage solutions, which include highperformance NVMe SSD devices, innovative HelioSeal enterprise-class hard disk drives as well as SAS and SATA SSDs. Eyal Bek, Vice-President of Product Marketing, Western Digital, says, “With data continuing to grow at unprecedented rates, many hyperscale and cloud storage customers know that their workloads trend toward data that is written sequentially. In these instances, customers are optimizing their infrastructures with the lowest TCO and the maximum capacity. By capitalizing on our highest-capacity SMR storage solutions, our customers’ investment can not only be fully leveraged today, but for subsequent generations of SMR areal density improvements for continued infrastructure optimization.”

BT announces direct and fast access to Google Dell Technologies announces its EMC VxRail Hyper converged Infrastructure appliances Cloud Dell Technologies has announced that Dell EMC VxRail

BT has announced the launch of a new service to provide organizations with simple, direct and fast access to Google Cloud Platform.BT Cloud Connect for Google Cloud gives customers direct connectivity with interface speeds varying from 50 Mb/s to 2 Gb/s. A resilient pair of high-performance connections means access to Google Cloud Platform services comes with more security, higher availability and with better consistency compared to connecting over the open internet.

The service is currently available at Google Cloud’s Ashburn and Chicago points of presence in the US, as well as in Frankfurt, Germany and London, helping organizations based in those regions optimise performance and meet compliance requirements.The new service complements Google Cloud’s Partner Interconnect, a service which offers enterprises access to Google Cloud Platform from anywhere in the world.

The service builds on BT’s global network reach, spanning 198 countries and territories.

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hyperconverged infrastructure appliances, powered by VMware vSphere and VMware vSAN software, are certified by SAP for SAP HANA production environments. The certifications, for both VxRail and VMware software, reflect VMware and Dell EMC’s continued leadership in the rapidly-growing HCI industry.

Dell EMC VxRail is the industry’s only jointly engineered, turnkey, fully integrated HCI appliance with VMware, powered by VMware vSphere and VMware vSAN and pre-tested and pre-configured with the latest Dell EMC PowerEdge servers. These appliances are the easiest and fastest way to simplify a VMware environment for HCI with seamless integration with existing VMware tools. VxRail offers simplicity of lifecycle management and scalability with a cost-effective HCI solution that delivers multiple compute, memory, storage, network and graphics options to match any use-case and cover a wide variety of applications and workloads.

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November 2018

19

VOICE-N-DATA

TTBS launches Smart VPN solutions for SMEs Sterlite Tech bags MahaNet citizen network Tata Tele business Services (TTBS) has introduced the Smart VPN Solutions for SMEs with improved security services and privacy capabilities project in Maharashtra that are resilient and make it easier for enterprises to connect with trust and security.

Smart Virtual Private Network (VPN) privatizes a public cloud network, extending it with the security of a private network. This helps businesses with a fully meshed network to have a seamless connectivity, ensuring proactive mitigation from any cyber threat. TTBS demonstrated this solution at its flagship customer connect programme Do Big Forum which was attended by over hundred delegates from SME community.

Elaborating on the Smart VPN, Vishal Bhat, Vice President – North (SME), TTBS said – “Fast, secure and dependable connectivity is the top of the digital enterprise agenda to manage a data rich future business.

Our Smart VPN solutions will enable SMEs to maximize their growth potential, optimize connectivity costs, enhance their customers’ experience and securely extend reach with instant access to cloud platforms.”

Nokia inks MoU with BSNL to jointly explore public safety initiatives

Nokia and Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) have signed an exclusive Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to jointly explore opportunities in the public safety arena. Under the agreement, Nokia will become BSNL’s Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) technology partner for public safety projects. The collaboration will assist in advancing public safety standards in the country and support the Indian government’s Smart Cities Mission.

Under the agreement, Nokia and BSNL will explore public safety opportunities for various industry segments including Smart City deployment, border-related activities, and mines and quarries in remote areas with limited connectivity. In addition, they will establish a missioncritical government network, allowing ministers and other officials to communicate securely across the country. The companies will also work with the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) to help them leverage the benefits of LTE technology in public safety communications systems.

DIGISOL introduces a fast Ethernet PoE unmanaged switch

DIGISOL Systems has announced the release of its new Fast Ethernet PoE unmanaged switch DG-FS1005PH-A. The DG-FS1005PH-A provides both data connection and electrical power to PoE-enabled devices through just one cable without modifying the existing Ethernet infrastructure.

Mandar Joshi, VP – Sales, DIGISOL Systems, says, “Our DG-FS1005PH – A New PoE switch will offer connection and power supply to the PoE device through the same port PoE port which will reduce the need for extra outlets and extension cables, more over this switch supports DIP switch which can extend Ethernet connectivity up to 200m at 10Mbps link speed for PoE ports to satisfy Video Surveillance requirement. You can also enable VLAN mode depending on DIP switch combination set on switch. Which will save significant deployment cost and labour/time efforts."

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Sterlite Tech has won a Rs.1, 512-crore MahaNet-I project for the implementation of BharatNet-II in Maharashtra.Maharashtra Information Technology Corporation Limited (MahaIT), a state-led nodal agency aims to connect approximately 13,000 gram panchayats through the MahaNet-I project. As a leading implementation partner, Sterlite Tech will connect 4,045 gram panchayats across eight districts of Maharashtra, impacting over 7.5 million citizens.

Elaborating on the project, SVR Srinivas (IAS), Chairman & MD – MahaIT and Principal Secretary-IT, Government of Maharashtra, said, “Sterlite Tech will design, build and manage a carrier-grade network, capable of riding Gigabit-ready broadband applications to the last-mile.

The company has successfully rolled out broadband networks for the Indian defence and for leading telcos, and now we are looking at them to bring in their technological expertise and best practices to MahaNet-I.” Sterlite Tech was associated with BharatNet in phase I, and will now partner with Maharashtra for BharatNet phase II to enable integrated digital services to the last-mile.

D-Link launches COVR-C1202 - the Whole Home Mesh Wi-Fi System

D-Link has introduced a host of products that bring about automation and convenience at an affordable price point. A new entrant in D-Link’s Connect Home series is COVR-C1202, a pack of two Whole Home Mesh Wi-Fi systems. With this D-Link has also expanded its Whole Home solution offerings, as the company had earlier introduced COVR-C1203 (pack of three). Now with COVR-C102 (pack of two) customers can choose a whole home Wi-Fi solution basis their requirement.

D - L i n k COVR-C1202 (pack of two) Dual Band Whole Home Wi-Fi System, offers seamless Wi-Fi solution that efficiently meets the connectivity needs of any modern home. It features two high-performance Covr Points that blanket every square inch of home with high-speed AC1200 dual-band Wi-Fi as well as two on-board Gigabit Ethernet ports (per unit) for wired connectivity. With COVR-C1202, one can enjoy Wi-Fi that’s stable, consistent, and truly seamless.

Tech Mahindra and Rakuten join hands to set up 5G Labs in Tokyo and Bengaluru

Tech Mahindra and Rakuten Mobile Network have signed a MoU to collaborate on building world-class next-generation (4G & 5G) softwaredefined network laboratories in Tokyo and Bengaluru.

This collaboration will drive innovation to bring about the transformation of mobile network technology and enhance customer experience for users in Japan. The announcement comes on the sidelines of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Japan and meeting with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to further strengthen Indo-Japan business ties.

With this collaboration, Rakuten and Tech Mahindra aim to build a world-class 5G-ready network lab which will be one of its kind in the industry. With Tech Mahindra’s capabilities in the 5G domain – Mobile Networks, IT, Cloud and Enterprise Applications, and Rakuten’s vision to create a resilient fully automated 5G-ready network in Japan and beyond, the labs in Tokyo and Bengaluru will focus on fostering innovation in the telecom space. Tech Mahindra will also provide network integration capabilities to add value to the lab operations.

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November 2018

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CHANNEL BUZZ

Tyco Security organizes 2nd Annual Partner TAIT reconstitutes its new Board of Directors Meet for 2018-19

Tyco’s 2nd edition of its annual partner conference – Converge ’18 has seen 45 partner firms participate and more than 50 partner delegates converging. Held in Sri Lanka, the conference served the dual purpose of knowledge exchange, learning and team building. Tyco is a leader in security solutions and is a business unit of Johnson Controls.

Tyco’s senior executives took to the stage to present the awards to the company’s top-performing partners. The presenters include Kenneth May, Vice- President, Sales – APAC, and Rajeev Samanta, Regional Sales Director, South Asia.

Kenneth May, Vice-President, Sales – APAC, says, “The security solutions market is on a high-growth trajectory owing to emerging trends such as smart homes and smart cities. We have been able to capture and deliver on this market demand time and again due to the support and excellence of our partner network,” said Kenneth May, Vice-President, Sales – APAC. “It’s an honour to recognize the 2018 partners who represent the best and most forward-thinking innovators coming out of our partner community. We thank all our partners for their contributions and congratulate the award-winners for their ongoing leadership.”

Rajeev Samanta, Regional Sales Director, South Asia, says, “Converge is the biggest annual event for Tyco Security India and all our eminent partners. It offers us an invaluable opportunity to come together and share our thoughts with each other. The discussions during this event have been a good collaborative process wherein all present have been able to learn from the best practices and challenges faced by each other. The next steps will involve applying our mutual learnings to deliver on our ultimate vision.”

COMPASS elects its new team at its 24th AGM

Computer Association of Eastern India (COMPASS) has always been a facilitator and a catalyst working closely for the growth of IT industry and benefits of its members. The 24th Annual General Meeting of COMPASS was held on 15th September, 2018 in Kolkata in the presence of its past Presidents and members.

J.K. Bothra of M/s Planet Computers and 15 other members were elected uncontested as the President and Executive Committee Members for the year 2018-19. J.K. Bothra, the incumbent President, appointed the office-bearers for the year 2018-19.

Various Committee Chairmen were also appointed for smooth working during the year ahead.

The President also chalked out a plan for the benefit of its members and IT trade across Eastern India. The year 2018-19 is also the Silver Jubilee Year of COMPASS and is going to be an eventful year.

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Trade Association of Information Technology (TAIT) has announced the formation of Board of Directors that will lead the association to achieve newer goals and targets. Apart from the addition of new members, the new Board has also created specific subcommittees, comprising of select directors that will focus on key functions of the committee.

Sameer Parekh, President, TAIT, says, “We are grateful for the opportunity of leading this esteemed IT association and would like to assure all members and the fraternity that the new board is determined to take forward the legacy of TAIT from our predecessors and continue striving for excellence, growth, wellbeing and development of our members and the fraternity at large.”

Among the 12 Directors, the Board has created 13 different committees to ensure a smooth and functional association that is efficient in performing all of its focus duties.

Apart from the above, TAIT has also been actively involved in giving back to the society. Led by Samir Mehta, they recently conducted the annual notebook distribution initiative where free notebooks were distributed to the needy employees of member’s businesses and also to those outside of the field of IT, through contribution members.

This year, notebooks were also distributed to the flood victims of Kerala, along with a TAIT Kerala Fund sent up by the board where members contributed generously.

As a leading association for IT, TAIT has been setting an example of holistic growth, knowledge-driven engagement and creating a meaningful difference in the life and businesses of partner members.

As part of these initiatives, the New Board has already started working on TAIT’s Annual Events. One of them is the highly anticipated “TAIT Annual Winter Business Networking Meet”, which is scheduled to be held during the fourth week of December. The event hosts vendors and offers ample networking opportunities to TAIT members during the evening meetings.

NetRack organizes SI Partners Meet in Bengaluru

NetRack has organized an exclusive meet for all its East India Partners at Windflower Prakruthi Resort, Bengaluru. The partner's meet-cum-training program has been conducted for two days which included the visit to NetRack's “state-of-the-art” production facility.

NetRack's partners associated with various verticals like government BFSI, IT/ITeS, Hospitals & Hospitalities made their presence at the meet. The spirit of two days meet was to exchange thoughts, ideas, challenges and opportunities in the market. The sole agenda of the meet was to educate the partners on the latest trends in the data center space and how NetRack's products and solutions can make their way addressing the requirements of customers.

Partners grabbed the opportunity to interact directly with Ravi Raj, Brand Head, Director, Sales & Support, NetRack, and shared the feedback/ concerns received from the customers.

Ravi Raj says, "It feels great to connect with the partners who help NetRack to penetrate into untapped regions in the Indian market.

Indeed! This is an eminent opportunity created to catch up with people who drive us to journey of success. We would like to thank all the SI partners who joined us for the meet. It's an honour to host a partner's meet for business associates. We are looking forward to many more successes in the business together, forever."

17th VARINDIA STAR NITE AWARDS The Star Nite Awards (SNA) - 2018, SNA is popularly recalled as the DNA of the Indian ICT Channel, an initiative taken by VARINDIA, will be held on Friday, the 23rd November, 2018, at 6.00 P.M. in Hotel Taj Palace,Sardar Patel Marg,New Delhi -100001.

The event is expected to attract 300 CEOs and CXOs from the Indian IT and telecom industry, who will discuss and brainstorm on the theme “Accelerating Digital Transformation” as how to work seamlessly with the government and corporate world’s mandate on the a winning strategy will focus on sectors that have the greatest potential to unlock value such as core digital infrastructure, cybersecurity, digital identity, and payments that can scale up across multiple sectors.

As is customary, the Star Nite Awards will recognize vendors for bringing the best products and services in various categories and Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) for their contribution in innovations and best practices and also the VARs for driving various technology and solutions to spread across the country. The event will also witness various tech gurus to share their experience the tech-talk session.

Senior industry delegates from the industry and keynote address will be the special attractions in this year’s event.

Theme: Accelerating Digital Transformation VARINDIA - The Frontline IT Magazine Cordially invites you to Star Nite Awards-2018

Date & Venue

Keynote Address by Chief Guest

Friday, 6:00 PM 23rd November 2018 at Hotel Taj Palace New Delhi

Hon’ble Shri. Manoj Sinha Union Minister of Telecommunications & Minister of State, Railways, Govt. of India Mr S. N.Tripathi Secretary, Parliamentary Affairs, Govt. Of India

Guest of Honour Dr. Ashok Dalwai Addl. Secretary and CEO NRAA, Govt. of India

Mr K Alagesan CMD, ITI

Special Guests Mr C. P. Gurnani M.D., and Chief Executive Tech Mahindra

Mr C. S. Rao Chairman Quardgen Wireless

Mr Vipin Tyagi E.D. C DOT

thanks 14,310 for Voting!

Lucky draw for early birds registered by 5:30 P.M.

Principal Sponsors

Gold Sponsors

Networking Sponsors

Managed Hosting and Multi-Cloud Sponsor

Supporting Sponsors

Media Partners

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FACE TO FACE

QUANTUM handling large data workflows in demanding big data ENVIRONMENTS As organizations continue to generate new types of valuable data, there is an increasing need to retain data and maintain visibility and access to it. However, keeping all that data on high-performance disk is proving cost-prohibitive and difficult to manage. Jim Simon, Vice President of Global Field and Channel Marketing, Quantum shares with VAINDIA of how the company offers an integrated solution set that has proven effective in managing some of the world's most demanding big data environments – Statista estimates that in 2018, datacenter storage capacity stands at 1,450 exabytes that is further growing to a massive 2,300 exabytes by 2021.

This is a lot of data and its growing fast.

Over 50% of the data stored today consists of video and or images.

This is expected to continue to grow in the years ahead with advents in video surveillance, corporate video, and analytics.

“Quantum is the global leader in video and rich media storage. We have a long legacy of helping organizations ingest, edit, share, protect, and archive video through our StorNext file system. We are doubling down in this area by addressing distinct vertical markets such as autonomous vehicles, media/entertainment, corporate video, biomedical research, satellite imaging, and more. These are all heavy growth industries that Quantum resellers can profit from,” says Jim Simon, Vice President of Global Field and Channel Marketing, Quantum.

A range of key industries, including life sciences, engineering design, energy and university research, rely on workflows that involve storing, managing, and moving large numbers of files. Quantum helps companies meet this problem head-on by reducing both operating and capital costs associated with managing large amounts of file-based data across complex storage environments.

From an end-user perspective, Quantum recommends that customers audit their data workflows to understand • Where am I generating data?

• What kind of data is it? Structured (database) or unstructured?

• What is the growth rate of data generation?

• How big is this data (e.g. terabytes, petabytes, exabytes)?

• Does it need to be shared instantly?

• Does it need to be protected such as via replication to one or more sites?

• Does some or all of it need to kept in archive after a certain period of time?

• Does some or all of it need to be stored in the cloud?

Quantum’s StorNext file system was designed to handle large data workflows. Its origin dates back more than two decades when it was built for satellite imaging management. With the growth in different verticals including new ones like autonomous vehicles, StorNext is perfect for helping our customers, specifically with-

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• High-performance ingest such as with our new NVMe tier of storage • Multi-protocol access such as NAS and SAN • Shared access by an unlimited number of users in the same or globally distributed locations • Instant replication for data protection • Automatic tiering from highest performance/high cost storage such as flash to high performance/lowest cost tape or cloud

Challenges with growing data…

In business storage, data growth gives a host of challenges. This allows companies like Quantum to improve the storage and the security of the data, which are led by an innovation.With new data generating every day and the old ones piling up, three of the most common challenges include • Inability to scale with the volume of data generation in terms of performance or capacity • “Islands” of data that are difficult to access • Lack of auto-management of data tiering from highest performance/ high cost storage such as flash to high performance/lowest cost tape or cloud Quantum StorNext addresses each of these three common issues through its StorNext system • StorNext is infinitely scalable • StorNext provides a “single pane of glass” management of any tier of data, even data stored on non-Quantum disk or tape • StorNext StorageManager applies a policy-based approach to move data between tiers. For example, a 100GB video might be in development for two months and then played out once. It will likely never be deleted but it shouldn’t reside on the highest performance storage tier where it was created. It should automatically be migrated to high performance/lowest cost tape or cloud, making room for the next projects.

“Our customers look very different on the outside but their data generation is very similar, namely rich media. We address distinct vertical markets such as autonomous vehicles, media/entertainment, corporate video, biomedical research, satellite imaging, and more and help organizations ingest, edit, share, protect, and archive video through our StorNext file system," sums up Jim. n

FACE TO FACE

Brightstar aligning its focus to drive a cloud enabled business in India 2018 has been a turning point for Brightstar as it enters the cloud league with its own cloud offerings - the very recent being the Security as a Services deal with SonicWall which has already seen some early success. It is also bringing its very own service offering in WiFi as a Managed Service soon very soon. Sanjeev Patil, VP – Networks Division, Brightstar Telecommunications India speaks to VARINDIA on the paradigm shift it has seen in its approach from a traditional distribution mindset to a solution providing entity in the Indian market -

How is the distribution landscape changing in the country and what is the need of the hour?

The distribution landscape witnessed an interesting 2018 which saw the industry move forward from the initial GST hiccups and shift its focus on building revenues, creating innovative service models, broadening geographical reach and optimising cost. Amidst the growth story, however, the falling margins and subdued growth of many small and mid-tier companies served as a wakeup call for that segment. Going forward, we expect to see a consolidation wave in the years to come, where small and medium players would merge to compete for large scale deals and keep up with the changing industry dynamics. Emerging trends in service delivery like Cloud Computing are likely to remodel the industry by creating new business opportunities for the IT/ITeS vendors and driving changes in the traditional service offerings. Today, margin pressures are pushing companies to proactively look for ways to contain costs while enhancing output. For long, Tier-2 cities have played around the fringes of mainstream IT/ITeS delivery. Today, we are seeing more and more companies moving into Tier-2 cities to set up delivery centres. In line with the market situation, distribution firms are also on the lookout for growth avenues like Cloud Computing/Opex models, beyond the traditional box-selling model.

In this fast changing world, how is the adoption of cloud platforms complementing the growth of Brightstar?

Over the past few years, cloud computing services and delivery models are being embraced by organizations globally for their numerous benefits. The data aggregated from cloud adoption trends show that companies are willing to use cloud services due to their business and IT benefits and to avoid costs in maintaining and upgrading their inhouse infrastructure. Brightstar with its foray into Cloud Services (in partnership with OEMs like Polycom, SonicWall etc.,) and Channel Partner ecosystem is confident that this business model will be a gamechanger in this industry.

Sanjeev Patil VP – Networks Division Brightstar Telecommunications India

Can you share about your next big service offerings on Wi-Fi as a Managed Service.

The traditional multiple vendor approach doesn’t meet the challenges How will the Security as a Services deal with of today and future WiFi needs. More customers are looking for a Sonicwall complement your growth plan?

With the cybersecurity threat landscape rapidly expanding, every company is facing new cyber security threats. Technology professionals are fending off attacks from all directions. CIOs and CSOs may have looked at cloud environments with a wary eye in the past. They now realize that Managed Security Service Providers or MSSP companies may be the best way to maintain protection. Security-as-a-service (SECaaS) is becoming a more comfortable concept for many technology professionals. They quickly realized that creating customized solutions are often too slow and expensive. Gartner estimates the cloud-based security services market will reach close to $9 billion by 2020.

Small and midsize businesses (SMBs) are driving growth as they are becoming increasingly aware of security threats. They are also seeing that cloud deployments provide opportunities to reduce costs, especially for powering and cooling hardware-based security equipment and data center floor space. Brightstar, with its reach to the SME segment through the Partner ecosystem is planning to utilise this opportunity through the Cloud offerings.

turnkey subscription based model to deploy an enterprise grade wireless network. Fast, secure, and reliable WiFi doesn’t depend on just one, but many network infrastructure components i.e. AP, WLC, SMP etc, engineered precisely to meet performance and user expectations. And it requires ongoing management and support to keep things running at their best. Brightstar WI-FI flex combines all of these elements and packages them into a monthly subscription model. As per our study, Small and Medium Enterprises, especially the Hotel and Healthcare sectors have high acceptability of Cloud Services.

How is Digital India and start-ups bringing newer idea and Innovative technologies?

There are a lot of Start-up firms in India focusing on innovative technologies like Cloud technology, IoT, Digital Payments etc. In the coming years, this sector will provide a big opportunity to Technology Distribution Companies like Brightstar to play a big role, not only in terms of selling the products but also to enhance their service portfolio. n

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FACE TO FACE

“Expanding attack surfaces are causing organizations to rethink their NAC approach” In an interaction with VARINDIA, Jitendra Ghughal, Director Channels, India & SAARC - Fortinet highlights how NAC’s monitoring and response capabilities are especially critical since many IoT devices open networks to additional risk via compromised, poorly written and unpatchable software, unadvertised back doors hardwired into firmware, and more -

What is driving customers today to reprioritize their security tools and approaches?

Security strategies are ever evolving. Recent cybercrime developments have caused many of the customers' IT teams to reprioritize their security tools and approaches. For example, for many years threat prevention was the primary tactic they used to secure their networks, with teams acting to ensure that no unauthorized attempt to infiltrate the network could be successful. The result was a heavily perimeter-focused security approach, which often left a largely open and unsecured network that could be easily navigated once an attacker managed to get inside.

For far too many of the customers, this is still the case. As cyberattacks become more sophisticated, though, more IT teams are accepting that it’s impossible to stop every attack. To keep pace with threat trends and technology, IT teams must adapt by adjusting their strategies and tools.

Network Access Control is not new to networks but how has it roles evolved in security strategies over the years?

Network access controls have been around for the past 15 years, but due to traditional perimeter-focused security strategies, and NAC’s reputation for complicated implementations, the option hasn't played a significant role in recent security approaches. However, expanding attack surfaces and a new generation of NAC solutions are causing organizations to rethink their approach to Network Access Control.

Today’s modern NAC solutions provide your customers with enhanced visibility into the IoT devices on their corporate networks, whether they're connecting from inside or outside the network. Moreover, modern NAC tools can also automatically respond to compromised IoT devices or anomalous activity. They also provide a clear view into network assets to support regulatory certifications and security best practices that require organizations to establish and maintain an accurate inventory of all connected devices, including IoT—even in virtual environments where assets are constantly connecting and disconnecting from the network.

Customers need a unified view into every IoT device on the network to secure against the threats brought on by the adoption of IoT, combined with the ability to detect and act on threats. NAC solutions do just that by leveraging automation, contextual data, and integration for visibility across integrated IoT, operations, IT and cloud networks.

NACs provides customers with three essential capabilities LearnTo overcome this problem, customers’ security teams need to identify and learn about each device connected to the network, including the level of risk each device carries. NAC controls visibility into every device across the entire distributed network. NAC then uses advanced tools and techniques to provide a detailed inventory of the devices on the network. Agentless scanning detects and classifies all IoT devices, including headless devices. Automated onboarding allows organizations to onboard large numbers of endpoints, users, and guests. And device profiling uses behavioural information for the level of access permitted for a device.

Segment: Many of your customers have designed open networks to facilitate faster transfer of information. The challenge is that such environments also allow compromised devices to dwell in the network long enough to determine where valuable data is stored, and then quietly exfiltrate it under the radar.

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To minimize the potential of such an event, IT teams must be able to classify each device in the network and then apply an appropriate set of access rules to ensure it can only enter certain areas of the network. These rules must then be communicated to the rest of the security infrastructure, thereby preventing an outside device from accessing and stealing sensitive data stored across the network.

Protect: Because modern cyberattacks occur at machine speed, network access controls must respond to threats at digital speeds. Doing so requires automation and threat context. Modern NAC solutions leverage automation to respond to compromised devices the moment they are detected in a network. NAC can then immediately act to terminate the connection, restrict network access or change configurations.

How does a NAC Solution Secure IoT in a network?

As connected devices continue to become more prolific across customers’ networks, they need a modern network access control solution that can identify IoT assets, enforce access control rules, and automatically isolate and remediate threats posed by compromised devices.

NAC solutions today offer unified visibility into connected devices across your customers’ distributed networks. Such integration ensures optimal protection even as the volume of IoT devices connected to their networks expands.

As cybercriminals successfully target the growing number of attack vectors being implement due to digital transformation efforts, doing more of the same when it comes to security is a losing strategy. Organizations not only need to become more hypervigilant about security, but they also need to be smarter about what they do with that information. Those who fail to meet their digital transformation efforts with an equally aggressive security transformation strategy will forfeit their ability to compete in today’s digital marketplace as they become victims to the continually innovative cybercrime community. n

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INDUSTRY WATCH

Lenovo Transform 2.0 Forges new partnerships as part of its Transformation strategy Lenovo is a US$45 billion Fortune Global 500 company and a global technology leader in driving Intelligent Transformation through smart devices and infrastructure that create the best user experience. Lenovo manufactures one of the world’s widest portfolio of connected products, including smartphones (Motorola), tablets, PCs (ThinkPad, Yoga, Lenovo Legion) and workstations as well as AR/VR devices and smart home/ office solutions.

Lenovo Transform 2.0 brought together customers, partners and tech industry experts from around the world for a high-energy collaborative experience - new solution announcements, immersive sessions and hands on demos with industry experts that will help provoke new strategies for unlocking the potential of transformative innovation in Cloud, Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things to transform IT. The annual event brings together technology professionals, Lenovo’s latest products and insightful panels and presentations from major industry experts and influencers who are shaping the future of Artificial Intelligence and other transformative technologies.

Lenovo Transform 2.0 has announced a series of partnerships and solutions designed for business customers that demonstrate the company’s ongoing Intelligent Transformation strategy, with a unique focus on Lenovo and NetApp partnership for progress. The strategy reflects Lenovo’s unique business perspective on how to build end-to-end solutions with smart features that transform businesses and improve the user experience.

Transform 2.0 has open a newer opportunity in the Technology transformation and Datacentre modernization space.

Intelligent Transformation will reinvent and restructure entire systems of production, management, and governance worldwide. It is driven by emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, augmented reality, the Internet of Things, blockchain and 5G connectivity. Lenovo excels in these competencies – based in the cloud, distributed through infrastructure, including networks and delivered by devices.

The latest announcements respond to the appetite for new devices and computers that meet the demands of customers and consumers, harnessing the potential of data, cloud computing and machine learning.

Yang Yuanqing, CEO, Lenovo, says, “Today, we share industry leading partnership and product announcements, reinforcing our dedication to realizing the great potential of Intelligent Transformation. From the largest portfolio of devices in the world, leadership in the data center,

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Sumir Bhatia

President, Data Center Group Lenovo, Asia Pacific to the algorithm powered intelligent vertical solutions, and built on strong partnerships Lenovo has built over decades, we have the complete playbook for Intelligent Transformation. Lenovo is a business ready for the future, and we are a partner helping to drive intelligent transformation with companies globally, every single day.”

The innovations happening at Lenovo are creating the capacity and computing power for the connections that are changing business and society.

Lenovo Data Center Group (DCG) has announced strategic partnership with two global powerhouse. Lenovo’s business decisions and partnerships help improve society both today and tomorrow, with the goal of empowering its customers and partners to adapt, evolve, and navigate today’s economic conditions as they transform their businesses. Lenovo recently announced a new partnership with NetApp, the data authority for hybrid cloud. The multi-billion dollar global strategic partnership will help customers modernize their IT architectures and accelerate their digital

Vivek Sharma

Managing Director Lenovo DCG India

Les Mansour

Director of Channels, Data Center Group - Asia Pacific

transformation. Leveraging the strength of both the companies, Lenovo and NetApp will develop and bring to market new high-performance and next generation flash storage products and solutions scaling from the edge to the core network to the cloud. The partnership includes a new joint venture in China to deliver localized solutions for the world’s fastest growing storage and data market.

Kirk Skaugen, Executive Vice President, Lenovo and President, Data Center Group, says, “Lenovo continues to disrupt the data center market with our customer-centric solutions. Our announcement with NetApp demonstrates our commitment to delivering the best storage and data management offerings for our customers. Our legacy-free approach to developing data center products and services means we work with the best partners in the industry to provide the right technology for customers as they make their own Intelligent Transformation a reality.”

Sumir Bhatia -President, Data Center Group, Lenovo, Asia Pacific, spoke about Lenovo’s transformation from 1.0 to 2.0 , by focusing on the Datacenter Infrastructure surrounded by various technology services.

“India is the biggest growth area and we are going to invest heavily towards developing the channel eco-system,” he said.

“Talking about Data center group(DCG),we want to be the most trusted Datacenter partner for the customer, we try to solve the humanity based challenges. Lenovo’s data center solutions (ThinkSystem, ThinkAgile) are creating the capacity and computing power for the connections that are changing business and society. We have taken every best possible steps

Ashish Taneja

Channel Head, Lenovo DCG India

to serve the customer in Transform 2.0. Here we have a great channel programme and system integrator growth plan in place and you are going to witness something most exciting from 1st January 2019,with our own supply chain, and improved engineering solutions to give customer a choice,” said Sumir.

“We are No.1 in High performance computing(HPC), and Data analytics, that shows our branding with Ferrari and Ducati on the high performance. Regarding performance, it is our own responsibility,” Sumir said.“Our 40% bonus is coming from the customer satisfaction.

Today, Lenovo is No.1 in HPC, Software Defined Infrastructure, HPCAI, Datacentre Supply chain, DC Infrastructure, IoT and services.

17 out of the top 25 research Universities run Lenovo. Today, we are the No.1 provider of Supercomputer of the world.”

Vivek Sharma, Managing Director, Lenovo Data Center Group India, says, “Digital transformation is changing the landscape of countries, cities and enterprises. India is a strategic market for Lenovo and Transform 2.0 2018 reaffirms our commitment to the country, as a center of digitization and innovation. Through Lenovo’s differentiated approach to empower partners; they can tap new markets and unlock new opportunities.”

Lenovo now makes 117 of the 500 most powerful supercomputers on the planet—almost 1 in 4. Lenovo’s system designs are helping drive important research all over the world like the Marconi Supercomputer in Italy, and Canada’s SciNet. n

Lenovo, NetApp announce partnership at Transform 2.0 in New York Lenovo and NetApp have forged a storage alliance at the recently concluded Lenovo Transform event. The partnership also includes a joint venture in China, and a new series of all-flash and hybrid flash products that put them both in a much stronger position in the datacenter space.

The storage offerings include two families, each subdivided into all-flash and hybrid -flash products, jointly developed by Lenovo and NetApp and available now worldwide. Several of the products support NVMe (non-volatile memory express), the extremely fast communications protocol and controller able to move data to and from SSDs via the PCIe-bus standard. NVMe SSDs are designed to provide two orders of magnitude speed improvement over prior SSDs. The companies stated that they would work closely together not only on the sales side but also in product development globally. On the other hand, the joint venture in China was formed to deliver storage products and data management solutions localized for China's unique requirements and distinct cloud ecosystem.

Lenovo understands that while it has a line-up of SAN (storage-attached network), DAS (direct-attached storage) and tape storage products, it still cannot rival Dell EMC and HPE as a complete, one-stop-shop hardware and storage provider. By teaming up with NetApp, Lenovo wishes to create an even playing field with the competitors. NetApp, on its part gets access to Lenovo manufacturing, global channels and a huge customer base.

Lenovo finds themselves in the same position as Dell and HP had been a long time ago. Over time, both Dell and HP grew their portfolios via a series of acquisitions, which include Dell's acquisition of EMC and HPE's Nimble Storage buy. With NetApp on its side, Lenovo can go pitching into enterprises for storage along with their broad portfolio of servers. This will also go a long way in helping the company gain some leverage in the enterprise.

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EVENT

5G steals the limelight at the India Mobile Congress 2018 IMC 2018 began on a grand scale at Aero City, New Delhi, with over 300 companies fromover 20 countries from the Asia-Pacific regionparticipating in this prestigious event. Shri Manoj Sinha, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Communications and Minister of State for Railways, accompanied by Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, Hon’ble Minister of Electronics and Information Technology and Law & Justice; Shri Suresh Prabhu, Hon’ble Minister of Commerce & Industry and Civil Aviation; Shri Hardeep Singh Puri, Hon’ble Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Housing & Urban Affairs; Smt. Aruna Sundararajan, Secretary (T) & Chairperson, Telecom Commission; ministers and dignitaries from Cambodia, European Union, Lao-PDR, Myanmar, Mauritius, Nepal, and South Africa, inaugurated and participated in this second edition of the epoch-marking event. Dr Youngky Kim, President & Head of Samsung Networks; Vivek Badrinath, Regional CEO, Africa Middle East Asia-Pacific, Vodafone Group; Sunil Bharti Mittal, Founder & Chairman, Bharti Enterprises; Mukesh Ambani, Chairman, Reliance Industries and Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman, Aditya Birla Group were the other luminaries from the telecom industry who were present at the event.

IMC began in 2017 to build a collaboration platform for technologies and services in next- generation mobile communications. The inauguration ceremony has been attended by over 5,000 people from 10 partner countries, which included policy-makers, ambassadors, opinion makers, change agents, bureaucrats and investors.

Hon’ble State Communications Minister Manoj Sinha announced that the Indian telecom industry will roll out one million Wi-Fi hotspots in the country by December 2019, which is another step towards digital empowerment of the nation. Bharat Wi-Fi, a countrywide common interoperable platform of one million Wi-Fi Hotspots, owned and operated

by Telecom Service Providers, Internet Service Providers and Virtual Network Operators will be rolled out across the country. This initiative allows consumers to access Wi-Fi hotspots of any of the partnering operators.

The National Frequency Allocation Plan 2018 (NFAP) has been unveiled during the inauguration presenting a pioneering roadmap for the Indian digital communications industry.

The NFAP has released a quantum of 605 MHz

licence exempt spectrum in 5GHz band for Wireless Access Services and Radio Local Area Networks in outdoor, to meet the ever-growing appetite for data (from a current figure of 50 MHz since 2007). The NFAP has also offered over 30 licence-exempt bands for Short Range Devices (SRDs), Ultra-Wideband Devices (UWDs) and additional spectrum for M2M services, creating opportunities for the public to enjoy benefits from technologies and enabling the industry to build domestic manufacturing ecosystem. India has signalled its spectrum plans for 5G services aspiring to adopt the nextgeneration technology as a leading market.

In a major policy initiative, which will give impetus to small and medium entrepreneurship in the telecom sector, DoT decided to deduct payments for resources taken by Virtual

Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad

Hon’ble Minister of Electronics and Information Technology and Law & Justice “Mobile technology is transforming India. In a country with a population of 1.3 billion, smartphone penetration has been 450 million and internet penetration has been 500 million. We have 250 million social media users and 177 million ecommerce users in the country. The biggest asset of India’s transformation is today an ordinary Indian is having a smartphone in his hand. I would like to thank all the telecom companies for doing a commendable job in making this happen and contributing to the success of the Digital India story.”

Shri Manoj Sinha

Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Communications and Minister of State for Railways “The Government would leave no stone unturned in extending its support to India’s ICT and TMT sectors. The country is at the cusp of a digital revolution, with disruptions happening in each and every sector and industry. With growing smartphone and internet penetration and with the finalization of National Digital Communication Policy 2018, these are exciting times for the telecom sector, and the society. We are elated to have the support of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and Skill Development and Entrepreneurship to such enthusiastic participation from who’s who of the industry.”

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Everything you need to know to stop ransomware.

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IMC 2018 Shri Hardeep Singh Puri

Hon’ble Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Housing & Urban Affairs “Whatever initiatives we are taking up in order to build the new India, it all requires technology.

And I must say, the whole list of actions that are required to be taken, one area is the location of towers. This is a challenge we have confronted ever since there has been an exponential growth in the telecom sector. We have received frequent complaints from citizens regarding placement of these towers around their premises which is a hazard to health. We are looking at a permanent solution that will be a win-win for both the service providers and the consumers.”

Network Operators (VNOs) from telecom service providers, thereby reducing levies payable by VNOs. This avoids double taxation at various stages.

taken from any TSP for all the Wi-Fi hotspots deployed across India. Besides offering consumer delight, this industry initiative will create additional 3 lakh jobs.

A concrete plan is in the making by the DoT to enable home-grown technologies for trials in the field on a large scale to enable the development and the scaling up of the products and services.

Day 2 of IMC

The day 1 witnessed many rousing announcements by the industry and demos of the state-of-the-art 5G applications by global OEMs. Investments of approximately over Rs.2, 000 crore and over 3 lakh jobs are expected to be created.

The telecom industry will install one million Wi-Fi hotspots in the next 12 months.

Interoperability across different Wi-Fi networks will enable smooth experience for subscribers, as he or she will be able to use the data plan

Smt. Aruna Sundararajan Secretary (T) & Chairperson, Telecom Commission

“India has moved into a new digital era. IMC comes forward in a joint commitment with the telecom industry to build a better future. India’s relation with the ASEAN and the BIMSTEC countries extends back to several thousands of years.

The maritime routes with many of these countries are present even today. Today these linkages extend to the digital domain as well. India is working closely with these countries to develop digital villages which would provide connectivity and access to services such as telemedicine, education, e-Governance and e-commerce.”

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2nd day of IMC 2018 started on a high note with the Global CEOs Conclave, which included plenary sessions on subjects such as Networks of Tomorrow, Emerging Technologies, Power of Content, Open Source Technologies etc.

Who’s who of the global technology arena came together to deliberate on the future of technology and how it will bring about paradigm shifts in the way we go about our day to day lives.

The conversational sessions were attended by global speakers like Durga Malladi, Senior Vice President, Engineering, Qualcomm; Sanjay Kaul, President, Asia Pacific and Japan, Service Provider Business, Cisco; Dr. Jay Kim, VP, Samsung Electronics;Jay Chen, CEO, Huawei India; Dr. Anand Agarwal, Group CEO and

Mukesh Ambani Chairman Reliance Industries

“India is among the fastest growing large economies in the world. This has happened due to a combination of forcemultiplying factors.

Most notable among these is the visionary leadership of our PM Shri Narendra Modiji. During the past five years, he has galvanized India. He has launched more number of transformative initiatives… than in a comparable period anywhere in the world. An equally important factor is the contribution of Indian entrepreneurs, especially those in the telecom, IT and digital space. India has moved from 155th rank in mobile broadband penetration to being the number 1 nation in mobile data consumption in the world." www.varindia.com

Whole-time Director, Sterlite Technologies Limited;and Nunzio Mirtillo, Senior Vice President &Head of Market Area, South East Asia, Oceania & India, Ericsson. The session was moderated by Balesh Sharma, CEO, Vodafone India Limited. They talked about how 5G would be the key drivers for new technologies and innovations. 5G is not just about speed but more about adaptability and flexibility. 5G will enable us to connect many new devices and this will be supported by AI. The next generation networks will be very complex for humans to handle and therefore AI and machines will be needed to manage.

Panelists included Pardeep Kohli, President and CEO, Mavenir; Jim Jefferies, President and CEO, IEEE; Phil Twist, VP, Networks Marketing and Communications, Nokia;NivrutiRai, VP, Data Center Group, Country Head, Intel India; and Jimmy Mizrahi, GM Global Portfolio, ECI Telecom.

Sunil Bharti Mittal

Kumar Mangalam Birla

“A lot has happened in the country in the last one year as India braces the digital revolution. India today stands among the top countries across the globe in terms of adopting the latest technologies. The current telecom industry structure of three large private operators and a government-owned operator is the “right structure”, even though many operators had to go through significant amount of pain and job losses with nearly $50 billion being written off to achieve this. The National Digital Communications Policy will however capture critical issues like doing away with dual taxation, accelerating mergers and acquisitions and reducing litigation.”

“The merger of Vodafone Idea has been envisaged to create a strong identity that will participate in the next phase of Indian telecom revolution by building world-class broadband infrastructure. Vodafone Idea has made huge commitments to set up the voice and data backbone of the country with an existing gross block of $40 billion. Our immediate focus of the merger is to consolidate these networks into one strong global scale network, not only to handle current traffic but also to prepare for the future.”

Founder & Chairman, Bharti Enterprises

Chairman Aditya Birla Group

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IMC 2018 The panelists for the session included Matteo Maga, Managing Director, CMT, Accenture; Hiren Gada, CEO, Shemaroo Entertainment Limited and Sameer Batra, CEO, Wynk.

IEEE-TSDSI 5G Technology and Standards Workshop

The IEEE-TSDSI 5G workshop brought together technology experts and stakeholders from the Government, Industry, Research and Development Organizations, Academia to discuss emerging trends in 5G technologies, the opportunities and challenges that these pose for a broad spectrum of verticals including tactical and first responder missions, and infrastructure and ecosystem preparedness. The workshop is expected to serve as a catalyst to help define various use cases, drive standards, and investigate deployment issues suitable for 5G networks.

Jim Jefferies, President, IEEE mentioned, "Given the complexity of 5G technology, a successful implementation of this technology would require deep expertise ranging from semiconductor physics, Massive MIMO, Software Defined Networks, Shared Spectrum Access, Wireless Backhaul, Security and Applications to name a few."

Jim further added, "IEEE through its research and technical depth across its societies and through the IEEE Future Networks along with strong expertise in standards development through IEEE Standards Association will play a key role in driving this next generation technology globally. IEEE is also focusing on the region specific use cases and applications, including specific requirements for success of 5G deployments in India."

Innovation sessions

Similarly, there were sessions on proinnovation regulation and privacy, The Emerging World of Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, E-tail - The need of the Future, HealthTech - Age of Cyborgs, Industry 4.0: Building Factories of the Future, M-Education, Value Creation through Digital Marketing, Future of Enterprise, Aadhaar etc.

Other sessions of Day 2 included discussions around The Emerging World of Analytics: Creating Business Solutions, HealthTech - Age of Cyborgs, Value Creation through Digital Marketing, Artificial Intelligence: Innovation, Investments, Ethics and Responsibilities,

Industry 4:0: Building Factories of the Future, Future of Enterprise - Serving the Millennials, Next Generation Devices. Panelists for these sessions included Sandeep Bhushan, Director and Head Global Marketing Solutions, Facebook; Dr. Praveen Chandra, Chairman of Interventional Cardiology, Medanta, Gurgaon; Sumili Chatterjee, VP and Head Brand, BCCL; Santanu Bhattacharya, Chief Data Scientist, Bharti Airtel Limited among others.

The 2nd day of IMC concluded with the IMC Digital Communications awards.

UTStarcom was the award partner for the IMC Digital Communications Awards.

IMC 2018 ended with participants and organisers promising to be back next year.

This year’s event, with its’ theme of “New Digital Horizons – Connect. Create. Innovate.” established the IMC as a regular platform for global and local stakeholders in the sector to collaborate in the cause of exploring opportunities and leveraging possibilities, with specific focus on South and South-East Asia.

The Programme is being jointly organized by the Ministry of Communications (Department of Telecommunications) and CoAI. n

“Our job is not only to sell technology but to make it successful for customers”

Talking about why Trend Micro is trusted

by Customers and a differentiator in the industry, Nilesh Jain, Vice President, Southeast Asia and India, Trend Micro, “There are three parameters from which you have to either excel compared to your competitors or you have to be better than www.varindia.com customer2018 expectation 34 November

Trend Micro Incorporated in its event CLOUDSEC India 2018, which witnessed more than 650 business and technology leaders this year, upheld security-as-code and security automation as two important trends defining the future of cyber security. These two trends are in line with application development in the cloud computing era.

Trend Micro has recorded an incredible growth in its cloud business which contributes nearly 40% of its overall revenue in the country.

The company observes strong uptake of private cloud from the banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) sector; and that of public cloud from manufacturing, e-commerce, IT and IT-enabled Services (ITeS) sectors, and bornin-the-cloud businesses. New local customer acquisitions from 2017 to 2018 include the State Bank of India (SBI), the Syndicate Bank, Lupin Pharma, Bandhan Bank, PolicyBazaar, and Capillary Technologies, to name a few.

Talking about why Trend Micro is trusted by Customers and a differentiator in the industry, Nilesh Jain, Vice President, Southeast Asia and India, Trend Micro said, “There are three parameters from which you have to either excel compared to your competitors or you have to be better than customer expectation.

Operational Efficiency: We have an excellent operational efficiency that is why we have been to remain profitable since the day we listed our company publicly.

Customer Intimacy: We have been able to retain more than 90% of our enterprise customers that talks about customer success,

satisfaction ratio with us because customers once joined hands with us generally nine out of ten of them does not leave us.

Product Innovation: What sets us apart from our competitors is our ability to innovate.

We are a product innovation company and have been innovating products. We have a product innovation in our DNA.” It is quite true that the trends in Cyber Security are ever evolving and it is changing in a faster pace. This opens opportunities for people in this arena. There is an ample scope available in the security domain.

“There are three aspect of security – Technology, Process and People. We always believe that we are launching technology so fast that there is not enough manpower. There are millions of jobs available in the security positions. The technology which is relevant today may not be relevant after few years so what you need is to keep on leaning every day. With that thought we launched one program about two and a half years back in Cairo, Egypt which is a certification program in IT security. This is a very unique program in which we hire students like fresh graduates from engineering colleges spends a lot of time, energy and resources and gives them training for two to three months.

We are going to launch the same in the starting of first quarter in India starting from Bangalore. We have already built up a training center in Bangalore. As a company our job is not only to sell technology but to make it successful for customers to start seeing value,” concludes Jain. n

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VAR MOBILITY

WI-FI WILL SUCCEED IN THE COUNTRY ONLY WHEN EVERYONE THINKS OF IT AS A DIGITAL UTILITY

Wi-fi based Mobile Broadband if treated like a digital utility can do wonders for the country. What I mean is Wi-fi can only be an opportunity when the people who are using the Wi-fi are also willing to pay for itcreated lot of expectation from a CIO. Their Roles will be crucial to successfully articulating customer-facing solutions, developing new revenue opportunities, creating capabilities for global representation and fostering innovation within their organization

According to C S Rao, Chairman - QuadGen Wireless Solutions, Wi-fi based Mobile Broadband if treated like a digital utility can do wonders for the country. In an elaborate chat with VARINDIA, Rao explains why it is important to have a wi-fi infrastructure in place for a spectrum starved nation like IndiaWhat is the origin of QuadGen Wireless Solutions?

QuadGen Wireless Solutions started in 2008; we understood at that time that the wireless world is moving towards the 4G, and as we moved from 3G to 4G, the wireless networks have to improve in their performance with respect to Speed, end user expectations and the NW capability has to match the kind of advanced smartphones that we have nowadays. The network cannot be Dumb with Smart Phones used by extra Smart Apps and Consumers. This means that the RAN, Back Haul and Core network has to be optimized, and constantly monitored for its performance. If you have opted for 4G, you expect to be on 4G most of the time, and your handset should not go on to 2G or 3G mode.

We have a problem in India which is the voice call drop. In USA, another aspect is also IP Session drop, like if while watching an online video it suddenly stops in between. To address this problem, we were given the opportunity by AT&T and QuadGen came out with a radio network performance tool. It monitors customers who have opted for 4G and ensure that he/she gets the radio resources adequate enough so as to get the browsing speed of 10 Mbps. This helped AT&T to ensure Customer Satisfaction and QoS expectations and also save from additional NW investments. We started giving out these services to the US market from 2008, and made a revenue of $300 million over the past few years. We served about 100,000 cell sites for AT&T across all the 50 states. We also helped all Starbucks outlets, many malls, home depots, around 13 stadiums with better 4G coverage and made them wi-fi enabled along with AT&T. Taking our experience from there, we then came to India in 2014, where we have partnered with BSNL since, they have the maximum fibre reach in the country which we felt is essential to make WiFi as a successful adoption.

What kind of opportunities do you see in the India market today?

We are a licensed spectrum starved nation; if we had adequate spectrum speed then we could easily have had 4G speeds at 10Mbps per user peak speeds and 4 Mbps avg speeds. Wi-fi as we know is unlicensed spectrum. If you place a

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wi-fi at any PoP of Network, you get 250 MHz of Unlicensed spectrum access and you don’t have to pay anything for the Spectrum fee. But if you have to buy per MHz spectrum, it would cost you 5000 crores for 20 years. Spectrum costs is really very high in India. Since, we do not have enough spectrum, we have to take recourse in wi-fi. The Defence networks in our country requires a lot of spectrum and so most of the commercial spectrum that we require for our Mobile Users are not adequately available as is the case for globally harmonised bands. Thus commercial use of cellular services are impacted and Indian mobile customers pay a price for that true Mobile Broadband quality of Service. This is not so in other countries. So we find an opportunity in the Wi-fi space and hence we started playing in that segment.

Besides spending on buying spectrum, you would also have to spend 50 lakhs to 1 crore to put up for every tower, then you have to put other equipment which would additionally cost 25 to 50 lakhs for effective coverage. And this has to work 24x7; on the other hand if you have to cover a Software park of 200Mts and 100 Mts and in Building coverage on Wi-Fi, it will cost not more than 3 to 5 lakhs, because the cost of an equipment like Wi-fi Access Point is very less, compared to cell site equipment like BTS. In fact, a leading telecom operator has realised the opportunity of wi-fi and is offering its services aggregated with Licensed Spectrum at most of their PoPs on WiFi. Surprisingly with that use of Unlicensed and Licensed spectrum, such an operator is able to give better QoE. So likewise every operator can exploit wi-fi Unlicensed Spectrum along with the licensed spectrum.

India is the largest data consumption country in the world today, due to the entry and efforts of this leading operator.

Like we pay for our mobile services every month, we should likewise be made to pay for the wi-fi too. But the country still has not reached that level where people would be willing to pay for the Wi-fi they are using free of cost. This kind of a model you will find in USA, Europe and so we are thinking of replicating this model here in India too. There should also be a proper wi-fi coverage in public places, in the sense that you should be able to get 3 times the speed of 3G at one-third the cost.

But is the Govt. keen on implementing Wi-Fi in public places?

Let me give you some instances. Dharmendra PradhanJi is a very progressive thinker according to me. He wanted all the petrol pump locations to be Wi-fi enabled and so asked Hindustan Petroleum to float a tender. Vodafone, BSNL with QuadGen and Airtel bid for it at around Rs 1500 crores for 5 years. But then a leading telecom player comes into the picture and assures that they will do it for free and hence the tender gets cancelled. After that nothing has happened at the HP Pump outlets. The same story continued when a similar proposal was mooted by a committee of Ministry of LAW & Justice and suggested that all District Courts, High Courts, and Taluka Courts to get its campuses wi-fi enabled. But again nothing happened. As per the Digital India vision of PM Modi and on the recommendation of the current Textile Minister, and endorsed by the current Minister of HRD, it was decided that 750 universities and 10,000 colleges should become Wi-Fi enabled. And again the tender was stalled when a leading telecom player came forward to do it all for free and nothing substantial has materialized after that. These kind of acts are only depriving the nation of becoming a Wi-Fi nation.

So how has been your success so far?

Wi-fi has a big potential and if used right can give tremendous user experience. In a public Wi-fi, every session of every user has to be traced by the broadband operator – like what site he is using, if he is doing any unlawful activities and so on. Also, somebody has to pay for that infrastructure and maintain it for 1 to 3 years.

All public places like hospitals, schools, colleges, universities, courts, police stations etc. should be enabled with Wi-fi, which is what the rest of the world has done.

I entered this domain thinking that this idea will pick up faster.

We have so far done 108 tourist hotspots by joining hands with the Ministry of Tourism; a few significant ones are the Konark Temple and Puri Jagannath temple in Odisha where we have made the premises wi-fi enabled, Brihadeeswara Temple (Mahabalipuram), Taj Mahal in Agra, Khajuraho, Varanasi Ghats etc are other examples.

How has been the experience like for you?

The experience has been quite great as it has served societal purpose. There are thousands of tourist spots in the country, and we are planning to scale that number up from 108. Also, the Wi-fi potential is only there where you have a good amount of footfall at prominent places. We have planned and done 20,000 hotspots across the country but it is going to take time.

Given the potential there, we are slowly taking the enterprise model approach. Like to make 1200 villages wi-fi enabled, we have approached the respective MLA or the MP to sponsor his village from his Local Area Development funds and have asked them to pay approx. INR 2 lakhs for each village per annum.

This will also promote the MP or MLA for the citizen in the village

and he/she gets connected better with his/her visual image based messaging appearing before the citizen whenever a villager browses the net. Such revenue models on Wi-fi service delivery are really working for us. Such investments are pragmatic. We are also awaiting the BBNL Model of WiFi service delivery in 250,000 villages as a part of BharatNet.

How is the smart city business doing for you?

We have taken up smart city projects in Aurangabad, Bhubaneswar, and are thinking of doing it in some other places; we had bid for Ranchi recently. It is also true that making a city wi-fi enabled alone does not make it a smart city. You need to have sensors – whether it is the temperature sensor, humidity sensor, pollution sensor, traffic management, video camera, Solid Waste management bin based sensor, Smart Traffic Monitoring, Smart City NoC, etc. Again, when you put up these Smart sensors, you need to connect them. To connect them, we have 2 modes – through fibre (by taking the fibre all the way to the control room) or use wi-fi or 3G/4G. We have also won 4 tenders for the National Fibre Grid worth about 3000 crores and so will be implementing these fiber grids along with Wi-Fi.

Can 5G be a success for a country like India?

5G will be an advantage to the citizens provided everyone gets the speed of 100 Mbps speed. Without it, 5G would not be a success. For that you need fibre connectivity to every 5G cell sites. We have approximately 5 lakhs cell sites across India and the fibre connectivity to the cell sites is only around approximately 18%. That has to be made 100%. 5G operates on much higher bands – 28 and 39 GHz bands. The question is at what price 100 MHz of spectrum will now be offered at, since for 5G at high Mobile Broadband to be a reality, every cell sites should have a minimum 100 MHz of spectrum. Earlier approximately 3000 to 5000 crores was the price for per MHz of spectrum for 20 years of usage. So if they maintain that price for 5G spectrum, then you will have to pay 5 lakh crores for every 100 MHz of spectrum for 20 year usage which would be an infeasible option for operators. The regulator (TRAI) needs to evolve a better pricing mechanism aligned with Global norms rather than going by the reference pricing earlier fixed for 3G/4G on per MHz basis. The Govt. as well as the regulator has to take a very tough decision in terms of spectrum pricing policy to avoid another earlier perceived so called 2G scam to happen in the country. The nation needs Digital India, True Mobile broadband, airborne internet speed of 10 to 50 Mbps and based on these factors the govt. has to decide the price of per MHz spectrum. DOT headed by its Secretary and a high-level 5G Forum headed

by Prof Paulraj of Stanford University have done a lot of hitherto unseen and unprecedented professional work for a great 5G policy frame work for India and was unveiled at IMC recently .

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FACE TO FACE

“We have terabytes of data to think ahead of the curve” - Atul Dhablania SonicWall has been fighting the cyber-criminal industry for over three decades now, defending small, medium-size businesses and enterprises worldwide. SonicWall’s award-winning, real-time breach detection and prevention solutions secure more than a million business and mobile networks and their emails, applications and data.

Atul Dhablania, Senior Vice President, Chief Operating Officer – SonicWall and Debasish Mukherjee, Country Director India & SAARC, SonicWall in a chat with VARINDIA briefs how a brilliant combination of products and partners of SonicWall has enabled an automated real-time breach detection, helping businesses to run more effectively and fear less about security -

Atul Dhablania

Senior Vice President, Chief Operating Officer – SonicWall

Why would a customer go for SonicWall at the first place?

When you look at the cybersecurity space, the most important thing is to understand who as a player has been there the longest in the market and who has got the right set of products and solutions to address the complex security ecosystem. If you look at the latest NSS report, our products have 98.9% efficacy. There is only one company that comes even close to that. So, when we look from a customer perspective, our firewalls are very easy to deploy. When you look at the SME customers, they do not have a proper IT infrastructure in place. You need to provide them the protection they need and bring that level of ease of use where they can deploy the solution and do not waste much time understanding that product. So, we have got all the right mixture of the ingredients from the perspective of a network security solution provider.

Also, when you look at the threats that are coming in, they are getting manifested in different ways. So, who has got the data to analyse what kind of threats are being experienced? SonicWall has it.

Another aspect is the channel. SonicWall is a very channel friendly company. We have a two-tier distribution model and the channel just love that.

We do not have a direct sales model. So, in a nutshell, our rich product portfolio, channel eco-system and access to huge amounts of data and the ability to extract that into real-time intelligence is where our strength lies.

How do you understand threats – of what intensity it is and to what degree of harm will it do?

The nature of malware changes every day. The actors who are generating these malware are coming up with new techniques every day. What do humans do when they study a problem? – They look at what they have done in the past and modify their approach to evade certain things.

We came out with a technology called Real Time Deep Memory Inspection (RTDMI). This technology is based on Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. It is basically looking into the memory of the malware and detecting it just like a human would do. And for this you need data. In the last 8 months, we have come across more than 27,000 new malware because of our engine. Between January 2018 and September, in India, RTDMI recorded a significant increase in cyberattacks. Malware attacks rose 63% (to 298 million), ransomware attacks increased 36% (2.25 million) and 106 billion intrusion attempts were detected, which is 44% higher than last year.

You expose us to any kind of malware, we would be able to identify it. Most of the other engines available commercially would not be able to figure out if it is a malware. But with RTDMI technology, we would be able to identify a hidden malware too.

All the ML and AI algorithms depend on how rich the data is. We were talking to a company that has been in this business for five years and they want to partner with us as we have access to a huge pool of data. If you have data only for the last five years, you would have very limited knowledge of what has happened in the past. But we have got terabytes and terabytes of data and we are teaching the machine just like teaching a human brain.

We have to think ahead of the curve. Four-five years ago, we did not know what ML or AI is. But today technology has advanced to as far as Deep Learning, which is an advanced form of ML. You are looking at breaking down a problem into smaller issues. When a hacker writes an algorithm, he has the same resources as we have got with us today.

What is your R&D team like?

We have a great threat labs and research team. We have three R&D units, globally. One in the US, second in Shanghai, China and third in Bengaluru, which houses some of our strongest threat researchers. We have 291 patents granted, and 9 pending, which demonstrates the relentless level of innovation and expertise SonicWall continues to invest in.

What initiatives have you taken to educate your partners?

At SonicWall, we recognize how critical it is to equip our partners with the tools and knowledge required to compete successfully in the rapidly evolving cyber-security market. That’s why Partner Enablement is a key component of the SecureFirst Partner Program.

Our sales and technical training curriculum and resources are designed to help our partners deliver the best cyber threat protection possible while creating more value for their business. With the introduction of SonicWall University, it’s easier than ever for SonicWall Partner Sales Representatives and Sales Engineers to access the training they need to grow and support their security practice with SonicWall.

Debasish Mukherjee

Country Director India & SAARC, SonicWall

What is the present market for SonicWall like?

The market is responding well as it is growing. SonicWall has witnessed a phenomenal growth, and has grown to be a market leader in the APJ region. Global companies have realised the huge market potential of India, which is why they are introducing product features that Indian customers are looking for.

We are majorly investing in recruiting world-class talent. We no longer look at India just from the perspective of opening a sales office. We are now looking at amplifying our business here. We have a pre-sales, marketing, R&D and post-sales (support) team in India. Our sales have doubled from last year.

Moving forward, we are planning to further increase our R&D and tech support.

38 November 2018 www.varindia.com

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39

FACE TO FACE

“The industry is spending to safeguard data to prevent major breaches” Aujas is a leader in cybersecurity transformation services and helps premier banks, insurance providers, financial institutions and telecommunication companies across the globe protect their networks and data from increasingly advanced, complex and persistent threats. Sameer Shelke, Cofounder and COO –Aujas throws more light on his company during a chat with VARINDIA – Aujas as a company is focused on information risk which is also called cyber risk.The services portfolio which it has is comprehensive as it looks at various elements. Aujas looks at things which are on the application side, the data side, network side and people side. Over the last ten years, Aujas has built a service portfolio which looks at cyber security or information security from an end to end perspective and work with enterprises to make sure it secures that data.

“India as we all know is extremely forward looking from the standpoint of technology both in the government and the private sector. We are in many ways at par with the world in terms of what technology is used in India plus all the initiatives happening on the government side such as digital India, Aadhar and so on. So, it’s a major market from a technology perspective. So when that happens of course the risks are also higher which means that as we use more technology both on the corporate side as well as on individuals, the risks are high in terms of exposure. As a result we have more cyber risks and breaches happening, which is why the industry has focused spending on ensuring that data is safeguarded,” says Sameer Shelke, Cofounder and COO – Aujas.

Aujas calls itself as a technology neutral services company. It looks at customers and see what solution is required both from a service perspective and a technology perspective. “We are technology neutral and that is why we don’t push our own products or position our own product unnecessarily. Our focus is on the customer and create solutions that integrates services. We work with products or technologies which are more relevant in that particular situation,” says Sameer.

Aujas uses many methodologies from a technology perspective to come to a solution for IT risk. For instance, in the case of a bank, Aujas makes sure that it understands the risks which the bank faces from an information perspective. Banks have to protect their customers, the information about customers against issues of financial fraud, which is one element of protection. The second element of protection is to protect the business and its own information assets.

Most importantly while doing both these things it has to first comply withSBI regulations, as there are very strict and clear regulations as to how banks should operate.

“So when you work with a bank, the first thing you need to do is risk assessment, which is identifying what the business elements in the company are, what risks they face for protecting customers as well as protecting themselves, what is it that we have to do to comply with the regulations either from the state or from the central government or from RBI. We also need to assess what they have done so far, but look out for any gaps in terms of the things they should do more because of new risks or new regulations. So we do a risk assessment which is identifying what the situation is, what are the things they have done so far and what is necessary,” explains Sameer.

He further adds, “So we have to do Security audit, the second thing we have to do is the compliance audit, and the third is after we integrate the entire ecosystem, we will have to do the IT certification or security IT certification. Again the IT/security IT certification

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comes in various forms as there are compliance standards with respect to the specific industry the customer is into. For example if you are in the payment card industry, then there are PCI standards. We help customers to comply with those standards and then we engage certification bodies to come to the final audit and certify.”

And so…

According to Sameer, there are three things which differentiate Aujas from its competition - the first is because it comes from the cyber security space and has worked in this area for a long time, Aujas has a service portfolio which is very comprehensive. “So we look at things right from compliance to application to software to IoT to digital to API; we just have a large bracket to make sure that our services are comprehensive,” reiterates Sameer.

The second factor is experience, as Aujas has worked with lot of customers, both big and small in India and outside and has dealt with compliances or technological challenges. Aujas works with almost every banks in India, telcos in India, start-up companies and large global companies.It has around 400-500 customers over the last ten years.

The third factor is expertise. “We have the right expertise both from a technical perspective as well as a home process perspective. So at a very high level what differentiates us is the comprehensive nature of our portfolio, our experience and our expertise,” sums up Sameer.

Today 50% of Aujas’s revenue comes from India, while the other 50% comes from outside India.BFSI is the largest sector, while it also has clients in sectors like manufacturing and retail. n

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41

COVER STORY

SEASON'S

GREETINGS

Boost to Online Sales this Festive Season The festive season is that time of the year when everyone gears up with new spirit to celebrate the festivals across the globe. It is no different in India.

Here, the festivity starts with Dussehra and goes all the way upto Christmas and New Year. People celebrate this time with get-togethers, food, vacations and loads of shopping. The shopping spree of the people is being triggered by various offers and the mega sales offered by both online and offline retail chains. People become shopaholic during this time as festivity also marks exchange of gifts among the near and dear ones. Not only clothing, apparels, ornaments, automobiles people tend to buy electronic appliances, smartphones, and IT products also.

This festive season also sees shopping fanaticism among people.

According to a study by Oath, a Verizon subsidiary, the online shopping burst begins as early as mid-September and the sales has increased 29% year on year in September 2018. It is a record high for India’s festive shopping season online. The study also reveals that this year 42% of shoppers bought an electronic item which makes it the top selling category in online shopping.

Elaborating on this, Erin Chao, Head of Platforms, APAC, Oath says, “The huge volume of data points across our brands gives us a comprehensive understanding of consumers in India and their behaviour. These deep insights in turn

are helping our advertisers to make sense of audiences’ preferences and market trends at a very strategic level, to put in place data-driven marketing strategies during this crucial season.”

Counterpoint report predicted that the smartphone sales during the festive season will hit a record number both in terms of volume and value. The reason behind this would be the mega sale offered by the online retail players such as Flipkart’s Big Billion Day and Amazon’s the Great Indian Festival Sale.

These annual sale encourages exclusive online launches, aggressive offers and deals ranging from price cuts, cashback offers, exchange offers, no cost EMIs and a bunch of other promotional offers.

Industry Reactions Raghu Reddy

Head of Categories and Online sales, Xiaomi India “This year has been very special for Xiaomi India, as we witnessed a sale of over 2.5 million devices in less than two and a half days at the very start of the festive season. This feat was a first time for Xiaomi India and we want to ensure that this festive season, we continue to offer our innovative products of the highest quality at even more incredible prices than before. We hope that our Mi fans and customers of India make the most of Diwali with Mi, and we look forward to a joyous festive celebration with our Mi Fans”.

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P Sanjeev

Vice President, Sales, Huawei Consumer Business Group “Honor as a brand has always committed to provide an amazing smartphone experience at great prices to our customers. With this thought, we are extremely thankful to our customers for such an overwhelming response at the first Diwali sale and we hope to see the same excitement during this Amazon Great Indian Festival Sale as well. Given the quality and robust performance of Honor smartphones which has withstood the test of time, we are confident that our consumers will log on and avail these lucrative offers both on Amazon as well as on our e-marketplace portal – Honor Store.”

Madhav Sheth

Chief Executive Officer, Realme India “After witnessing a huge success by selling 1 million devices in the last Big Billion Days sale, we are now determined to create another milestone with another 1 million stocks ready for our fans. Realme offering multiple devices in all segments with best features, we are very confident that Realme will keep achieving multiple milestones going forward.”

Manish Tiwary Vice President – Category Management, Amazon India “After an overwhelming wave 1 of our Great Indian Festival, we are excited to usher in wave 2 for all customers. We will continue to offer the best selection and biggest deals on our entire selection – from the most sought after smartphones, TVs, appliances to fashion, home & kitchen products, consumer electronics and more.”

Vijay Mhaskar

Chief Operating Officer, Quick Heal Technologies “People today access the internet several times a day for shopping, banking, studying, and browsing social media etc. What most users don’t realise is that, every time they log on, they are exposing themselves and their private data to advanced cyber threats. This is why we have launched the Quick Heal Total Security Festive Pack as the perfect gift for today’s internet-savvy, digital-first generation. Through this unique offering, we aim to help Indians protect themselves, as well as their near and dear ones, from the fastevolving threat landscape.”

Sangram Singh

CEO, Freecharge “Freecharge is continuously innovating and expanding its product portfolio to make the customer experience more convenient and enjoyable. The festive season gives us just the perfect opportunity to launch our unique Gift Cards. With Freecharge Gift Cards, we are trying to inculcate a sense of fulfilment in the customers by providing them the power to choose.

Considering the high purchasing and gifting behavior during the festive season, we aim at creating large footprints to scale up the value chain and deepen consumer engagement. After the recent launches of bus ticketing, UPI and other digital financial services, the latest addition of e-gift card intends to further encourage customers to adopt Freecharge for more than recharges and bill payments. With the gifting service, we expect to increase the popularity of e-gifting amongst a mix of urban and semi-urban consumers across tiers.”

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COVER STORY

Rajeev Bhutani

Senior Vice President, Consumer Electronics Business, Samsung India “Consumers are increasingly looking at higher value products to upgrade their lifestyles and ‘UPSIZE NOW’ is our proposition for these consumers. With our vast range of innovative products across categories, including Family Hub Refrigerator, Masala Sundry Microwaves, Wind Free Air Conditioners, the new 2018 line-up of Televisions and Washing Machines and range of Air Purifiers - all coupled with the irresistible festive offers, we are confident that we will further enhance our market leadership this festive season.”

Yogesh Bhatia MD, Detel

“Diwali is one of the most widely celebrated festivals in India and we want to make this auspicious occasion even more exciting and special for our customers by bringing happiness & prosperity in their lives. With incredible offers this festive season, we are providing our customers an opportunity to purchase and win the best of Detel products.”

Anish Kapoor CEO Infinix India

“This being our second Big Billion Day (BBD) with Flipart, we are geared up to catch the fancy of our consumers. The Big Billion Day is the most awaited online festival in India and this year we have the best of both the worlds, best budget smartphone under 5K and the only Android one smartphone under 9K price. Through these special offers we aim to cater all segments of users and offer them high quality devices at affordable price points. Our vision has always been to create new possibilities for our customers and through these special offers, we hope to give them another reason to buy their favorite Infinix smartphone and make their festivities bigger & memorable.”

Will Yang

Brand manager, OPPO India “We hope that this festive season brings joy to all our consumers, while we will continue to bring together the best of technology, art and innovation for them. The festive season is an opportunity for us to go forth and offer great experiences to our consumers. It is the ideal time for us to connect with consumers across the country in every way we can.”

Chandrahas Panigrahi

CMO and Consumer Business Head, Acer India “We want this festive season to be very special for all our esteemed customers across the country. Through these offers, we hope to enable our customers to experience the best in class technology along with exciting offers. We hope that these great offers and the forthcoming products will usher in a joyous occasion for all our consumers and partners.”

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Amit Sinha

Chief Operating Officer, Paytm Mall “We are excited to introduce the “Paytm Mall Maha Cashback Sale” as we gear ourselves up for the upcoming festive season. Our team has been engaged in the preparation of this sale for the past 3 months where they have partnered with top brands, meticulously planned and scaled operations while building logistics to give users the best shopping experience and best offers on a wide range of products.”

Eric Braganza

President, Haier Appliances (India) “We are extremely happy to announce the lucrative consumer offers for this festive season. With the core focus on our brand philosophy of customer inspired innovation, we aim to forge a stronger bond with our consumers by addressing their evolving needs and expect to have phenomenal festive season sales this year. Following a 360 degree approach this festive season, we will run our marketing initiatives via various platforms such as Electronic, Print, Digital and in-store branding etc.”

Vikas Bansal

Director, Emerging Payments, Amazon “Amazon has always been focused on making shopping truly affordable for masses online. We are on a mission to enable credit access for every Amazon customer. Amazon Pay EMI is a hassle free way of availing instant credit for customers that currently don’t have access to credit. This product has been developed leveraging India Stack to make the process completely digital. After recent expansion of EMI on Debit cards, we are very excited to bring this facility ahead of festive season and being the most affordable destination for our customers.”

Vikas Jain

Co-Founder, Micromax Informatics Ltd. “The festive season in India is one of the most awaited time of the year. Apart from the festivities, the consumers look forward to brands offering them some great products and services. Riding on that festive fever across the country, we thought it’s the perfect opportunity to give our consumers another reason to rejoice and enjoy the festivities in the best way possible. By launching not one but two smartphones together, we believe the consumers have a wide array of possibilities to choose from the Micromax family, depending on their specific needs and requirements. For the same, we are excited to partner with Reliance Jio and offer our consumers the best services. We look forward to a truly memorable festive season this year for both, our consumers as well as Micromax.”

Manmohan Chandolu

General Manager, POCO India “This is a truly defining moment for us as we witness the growth of our brand, and seek to explore newer horizons in the vast offline segment of our market. Following the launch of POCO F1, we received commendable response from our customers towards the Master of Speed. We look forward to reaching out to the wider section of the Indian consumers who are majorly offline based, and can now easily access our devices while enjoying the power of incredible speed matched with the ultimate performance at an irresistible price.”

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Ajey Mehta

Vice President and Country Head – India, HMD Global “The Nokia 3.1 Plus is designed for India and is coming first to India; and what better time than this festive season to announce this new smartphone. In addition, I’m thrilled that fans will now also be able to buy the legendary Nokia 8110, a stylish 4G feature phone phone that could be a perfect companion to your Nokia smartphone or a stylish statement as a 4G feature phone with access to latest apps. We hope these new phones will delight our fans for themselves or for gifting to their loved ones during this festive season.”

Ashwin Bhandari CEO, iVOOMi India

“In most of our customer interactions, we figured out that the latest buzzword for the smartphone users even in tier 2, 3 and 4 cities, is the ‘Notch’. Everybody wants to own the latest technology irrespective of the price segment. Considering this, we decided to give our customers a visual treat this festive season. iVOOMi has been diligently working towards developing technology for masses in India and the launch of iVOOMi Z1 is one step ahead in this direction”

Pradipto Ganguly

CEO-Founder, iVVO-BRITZO “I am delighted to extend this year’s festive excitement in the form of UPHAAR Offer.

The festive offer comes as a unique combination of BRITZO’s collective achievement in creating the ‘future phones’ that has an added essence of Diwali celebrations. With it, we are confident that corporates who are looking to gift their employees something with best-in-class design, cutting-edge features, and an unmatched user experience will be able to do so while simultaneously adding to India’s digital growth story.”

Festive campaigns by brands On the occasion to celebrate festivals in a bigger and brighter way, brands have come up with campaigns like TVCs, offers, schemes etc. This is a way to reach customers in a more appealing and attractive way. Campaigns are a strategic step taken by brands to promote their products and also increase sales.

TECNO To celebrate the festive season, TECNO launched ‘HarSuratKhoobsurat’ campaign, a TV ad campaign for new range of camera-centric smartphones.

The campaign is focused to celebrate the beauty of an Indian woman.

Gaurav Tikoo CMO, TRANSSION India “Har Surat Khoobsurat is not only a campaign for us but it is a philosophy that we truly believe in. We at TECNO are committed to delivering best camera and selfie experience across key price segments. And this festive season our new TECNO CAMON AI range of smartphones aims at celebrating beauty of every Indian and empowering them to pose proudly in any light condition. Through this campaign we want to better connect with them and revolutionise the Best Anylight photography experience. And to perfectly sum this idea up we rehashed the evergreen hit by Bombay Vikings, Kya Surat hai in our TV commercial. It highlights the khoobsurat features of the powerful CAMON AI smartphones that capture the beautiful moments with great perfection.”

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Canon

Canon is also not behind in this race of pleasing its customers with best offers. The company initiated a campaign on its social media platform called #SpreadTheFestivity. This initiative boosts the users to multi-fold their celebration. Through an influencer engagement on its social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, users are being encouraged to share their moments of spreading happiness to their near ones and the community at large, be it gifting your parents or donating food to the needy. The winners will be gratified in the second week of November. This activity is being organized as part of the organizations community driven initiative on digital media, called #ShiftYourFocus, wherein the social media users are encouraged to participate in issues that require their attention.

Kazutada Kobayashi President and CEO, Canon India “Festivals are occasions which create life time memories and we at Canon are proud to have played an instrumental role over the last two decades in helping our customers capture and preserve these memories. With customer delight as a pivotal element to everything we do at Canon, we are glad to enable our customers with more reasons to rejoice. Through pan-India initiatives and customized offers, users can avail festive benefits on their favorite Canon products and participate in initiatives specially curated for them. At Canon, we believe that joy is doubled when shared. Like every initiative, we would also like to extend the festivities to our communities.

Our CSR activities will ensure that our adopted villages also enjoy the festivities in full spirit.”

Freecharge

To add to the excitement of festivities, the digital marketplace, Freecharge has launched its festive season campaign-What’s the Big Deal. This campaign is aimed towards deepening the consumer connect by driving customer sentiment for the brand. The campaign consist of two films which highlights Freecharge’s commitment of enhancing customer experiences and making them hassle-free. Perfectly timed for the festive season, these films directly target the young and smart millennials.

Airtel

Like other telecom brands, Airtel has has also delighted its customers on this Diwali with exclusive benefits with #AirtelThanks program. Under #AirtelThanks program all Airtel customers who commit a monthly ARPU of Rs. 100 and above (for mobile) will receive exciting additional benefits at no extra charge. These benefits will include access to premium digital content, great offers on smartphones and online shopping vouchers. The higher the monthly ARPU commitment, the more benefits a customer gets.These customers will also get red carpet customer care for service and network related issues to add to their experience.

Vani Venkatesh Chief Marketing Officer, Bharti Airtel “We are obsessed with delighting our customers and our aim is to enable a differentiated experience for them. #AirtelThanks is our biggest initiative to celebrate our relationships with customers by making them feel extra special. This is a win-win program for our customers and partners. It offers brands the opportunity to reach customers with highly targeted offerings. We have received very enthusiastic response from our partners and look forward to building #AirtelThanks into a large scale ‘telco-brand’ collaboration property.”

VODAFONE

With time Diwali celebrations have changed, losing some of its familial togetherness to the easy lure of the digital world. So to encourage people to celebrate Diwali with family by keeping the devices aside, Vodafone launched a heart-warming video under its #LookUp campaign. Vodafone in this video boost the feeling of togetherness among the customers.

Siddharth Banerjee EVP – Marketing, Vodafone India “In the hyper-connected world, Vodafone again reiterates the need for real conversations, especially on occasions and festivals. Our #LookUp campaign has resonated well with our audience- generating online and offline talkability and driving up brand preference for Vodafone. Hence, after delighting our audiences on Valentine’s Day / Father’s Day and Friendship Day with #LookUp messages, this time around, we are extending our #LookUp philosophy to Diwali encouraging viewers to celebrate with family and friends – in essence, the connections that really matter.”

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VAR ANALYSIS

India Software Market: Good Times Ahead

From a global perspective, the IT/ITeS market was pegged at $1.2 trillion in 2017 with $178 billion coming from outsourcing business. India remained as the top destination for outsourcing IT services with a 55% market share India’s software landscape is largely dominated by global software companies such as Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, IBM, SAS, etc. They are ruling the market for years now as most of the big-ticket customers from BFSI, retail, pharma, healthcare, FMCG and others use their enterprise-grade solutions for running businesses globally. However, things have changed during the last few years. Their business models have been challenged by small players and startups in recent years.

Even though Microsoft, Oracle and SAP still share most of the software revenues, the rise of new players is pretty significant. Relatively new players like Qlikview, Infor, Epicor and Salesforce, among others, began to solve the key challenges in the traditional enterprise applications, giving customers cheaper and easy-to-deploy solutions. Many startups in India have also come up solving the traditional problems in their new software systems. In other words, the rise of new players and startups is purely the result of new tech trends.

The software market is today also driven by the consumption of newage technologies such as the data center modernization, cloud, Internet of Things (IoT), BYOD, etc. As the pressure on the traditional players in the banking, retail and FMCG, among others, has increased to offer better and fast services, the demand for more agile technology has increased. The software market is often caught in the demand cycle.

Going forward, the Indian IT and BPM industry is expected to grow to $350 billion by 2025 and BPM to contribute around $50 billion to that. On the other hand, Indian IT export business is expected to reach $126 billion, growing by 7–8% in the next fiscal. The industry is also expected to create around 150,000 jobs during this period.

Investment Dynamics

Indian IT’s core competencies and strengths have attracted significant investments from major countries. The computer software and hardware sector in India attracted cumulative Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows US$29.825 billion from April 2000 to December 2017, according to data released by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP).

The leading Indian IT firms like Infosys, Wipro, TCS and Tech Mahindra are diversifying their offerings and showcasing leading ideas in blockchain, artificial intelligence to clients using innovation hubs, research

Overall Market size

According to NASSCOM, the Indian IT and BPM (business process management) market touched $154 billion in 2017 as against $130 billion a year back, showing a growth of almost 8%. From that sense, the industry contributes around 7.7% to the country’s total GDP. The domestic IT services market is pegged at $38 billion in 2017, whereas the export business touched $117 billion in the same year. A year back, the domestic and export market size of the Indian IT software industry was $35 billion and $108 billion, respectively.

From a global perspective, the IT/ITeS market was pegged at $1.2 trillion in 2017 and the outsourcing market contributed $178 billion to that. India remained as the top destination for outsourcing IT services with a market share of 55%.

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and development centres, in order to create differentiated offerings.

Some of the major developments in the Indian IT and ITeS sector are as follows: • India ranked ninth out of the 14 countries in the latest report of the Korn Ferry Digital Sustainability Index (DSI), outperforming countries such as China, Russia and Brazil.

• The flexi staffing market in the information technology (IT) sector in India stood at $3.04 billion in FY 2016-17 and is estimated to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 14–16% to reach US$5.3 billion by 2021 • Private Equity (PE)/Venture Capital (VC) investments in India’s IT and ITeS sector reached $7.6 billion during April-December 2017.

• Exports of software services from India increased 10.3% yearon-year to reach US$97.1 billion in FY 2016-17, according to the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) “Survey on Computer Software &

Information Technology-Enabled Services Exports: 2016-17”.

• Spending on artificial intelligence (AI) by Indian companies is expected to increase by 8–11% over the coming 18 months backed by rising influence of AI-based solutions across verticals, according to a report by Intel.

Enterprise software size and trends

Enterprise applications market underwent transformation since most of the players pursued customers in the midsection of most of the verticals.

While there was a time when enterprise apps’ market had slowed because of the tepid spending by Indian organizations, it has gained pace and become a lot more vibrant. Growth of the overall enterprise software market stands as

a testimony. This is after a long time when the growth has moved to double digits. As discussed, it is due to the new wave of startups in the enterprise apps space. New startups and emerging players have added spice to the market through their targeted, core applications which are easy to deploy and do not need big setups. These players are wooing customers with their innovative solutions claiming to solve the age-old process-related problems in large enterprises. Sensing the growing competition, the traditional players are coming out with options and acquiring companies.

The growth is much better than the previous year which witnessed merely 6%. Digital transformation has been the biggest reason behind this growth. Large banks moved to digital platform, in an attempt to optimize their services. In addition, retailers and e-tailers also made IT investments in the future technologies.

Some major trends witnessed in the India software market include: 1) SaaS adoption and development, 2) Open-source software (OSS) adoption, and its broader market implications, 3) Changing buying behaviours and purchasing styles associated with digital business and the digital India initiative of Indian government, and 4) Demand for specialized software vendors that can deliver on the digital business vision.

Indian ERP Market

The Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software remains the first choice for large enterprises as they are faced with multiple organizational challenges and have to deal with day-to-day business complexities. Unlike the previous years, the growth of ERP segment has gone further. Major verticals such BFSI, retail, healthcare and manufacturing, mid-size companies embarked upon the ERP journey. While SaaS and cloud dominated the ERP segment, on-premise ERP did not vanish at all. There were companies which continue to invest in on-premise ERP solutions. One of the tyre manufacturers puts its money in the on-premise ERP recently. However, better licensing and pricing models on the cloud led software companies to tap the mid-size players. Players such as SAP, Oracle, Microsoft and others closely worked with their partners to deliver cloud-based ERP. Microsoft set up three of its data centers in the country in order to gain traction in the government.

CRM Market

Customer relationship management is growing rapidly across organizations. It is evident from the fact that several SMEs, SMBs and startups invested in SaaS-based CRM solutions. Large enterprises continued to invest in CRM technologies so that they can offer better services to their customers. E-commerce has been one of the frontrunners to invest in CRM. Even BFSI organizations continued their CRM investments.

Supply Chain Management

Delivery of goods is a big question. Many companies in the logistics, FMCG, e-commerce and manufacturing put their money in the SCM solutions.

Thus, Indian Supply Chain Management and procurement applications market sustained its growth with more than 15% growth. According to an analyst firm, the SCM software market witnessed robust growth through sustained application demand, as supply chain continues to be a key source of competitive advantage in driving business growth objectives.

Indian Business Intelligence market

The BI and analytics market has majorly been influenced by the development of mobile, information, cloud and social media technologies which are disrupting the market. Self-service analytics engines are disrupting the space as organizations are able to deploy and use analytics on their own unlike before when the traditional BI tools could only be handled by an expert in the organizations.

In India, there are several BI and analytics players. However, the market is led by SAP with a 26% market share, followed by IBM (23%), SAS (16%), Oracle (10%), Qlik Tech (3%) and Tibco (1%), among others.

The BI market also reserves a great opportunity for vendors as this is largely a fragmented space where several players are active and trying to innovate with their applications.

Indian business intelligence (BI) software revenue is forecast to reach US$245 million (in constant currency) in 2017, a 24.4% increase over 2016 revenue of US$206 million, according to Gartner, Inc. This forecast includes revenue for BI platforms (comprising of traditional and modern BI platforms), data science platforms, analytic applications and CPM Suites. The data and analytics market is undergoing a significant change.

Adoption of machine learning techniques for data management and analytics, the settling of hype around big data through more mature data storage, and processing and analysis solutions are a few of the changes.

Gartner also says the rapid shift to the cloud and hybrid data

management through focused offerings, and the emergence of modern BI platforms, smart data discovery and self-service data preparation solutions, which are all fuelling the next round of investments.

Govt Initiatives To Drive IT Industry In 2019

The Government of India is going to explore new opportunities in various sectors such as providing BPO service from home, digital healthcare and agriculture to achieve the target of making India a $1-trillion digital economy. Some of the major initiatives include: “The Government of Andhra Pradesh is targeting to attract investments worth $2 billion and create 100,000 jobs in the information technology (IT) sector in the state,” stated Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu, Chief Minister, Andhra Pradesh.

Mr Manoj Sinha, Minister of Communications, Government of India, launched the project DARPAN – digital advancement of rural post office for a new India, for improving the quality and adding value to services and achieving financial inclusion for the unbanked rural population.

Mr Ram Nath Kovind, President of India, has dedicated four projects, such as Andhra Pradesh Fibre Grid, Andhra Pradesh Surveillance Project, Drone Project and Free Space Optical Communication (FSOC) to the people of Andhra Pradesh.

The Government of India is planning to set up Wi-Fi facility for around 5.5 lakh villages by March 2019 with an estimated investment of Rs.3,700 crore (US$555 million) and the government expects to start broadband services with about 1,000 megabit per second (1 Gbps) across 1 lakh gram panchayats by the end of this year.

Going Forward

Industry body NASSCOM says the Indian software services export market is expected to grow by 7–9% in the coming fiscal. This prediction is in line with the industry body’s 7.8% growth prediction by the end of March 2018. However, the firm says there looms some uncertainty pertaining to the work visa rules in the US, the biggest market for India’s software export business. n

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LEAD STORY

Is India Inc. getting impacted by the #MeToo effect?

What started off with the Harvey Weinstein expose in the US has today catapulted into the large scale #MeToo movement.This campaign would not have gained such prominence had it not been for the power of Social Media that inadvertently worked as a recourse for many to vent out their angst against such harassments #MeToo, the online campaign that supports the survivors of sexual abuse, assault and harassment, has recently taken the social media by storm. Although it has gained popularity over the last two months, the initiative actually began 10 years ago. Apparently, Tanushree Dutta emerges as the movement leader of #MeToo in India.

The #MeToo India movement was sparked by actor Tanushree Dutta when she revived her sexual harassment accusation case against veteran Nana Patekar that took place on a film set 10 years ago. This movement is already dividing Bollywood into various groups and sub groups.

In India, the #MeToo movement has spread like a wildfire, which eventually led to an outpouring from women recounting their experiences. Working women and celebrities are coming forward on social media with stories and details of various forms of sexual harassment and misconduct. These stories are really painful who have been victims of such acts.

The #MeToo movement has brought many high profile names to the fore, who are regularly featured in Page 3. For instance, Suhel Seth,55, has been accused of sexual harassment and predatory behaviour at least by four women, including one who said she was a minor at the

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time of the alleged incident.

However a question arises on its authenticity.

What kept victims silent for such a long time?

What law and action will be taken now, as these crimes were done a long back? Will there be any action and prosecution to start, after such a long gap of years? If it is so, then up to what extent?

Also after allegations of sexual harassment are been made public, how are organisations and business associates with alleged perpetrators are going to react. Will they cut ties? Are they attempting to ignore the problem until it goes away? How will their reputation and image be treated in public?

There are also some like actor Govardhan Asrani who are calling this entire movement 'a publicity stunt'.

So Is India Inc. going to be impacted too?

The #MeToo campaign might not be confined to the film and the Media industry and with more women coming out in public, there are a few cases from the corporate world that are coming out into the limelight. The recent being the announcement made by Walmart Inc. that Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal exited

the company after an independent probe into allegations of sexual assault. Though Bansal has denied any wrongdoing and the investigators didn’t find evidence of assault, the process revealed “lapses in judgment” that troubled the parent company’s leadership.

Women in Corporate sector…

In a study indicating the participation of women in corporate India, the number of female employees in top 100 companies in terms of best workplace for the fairer sex picked up by 5 per cent in 2017 compared to the previous year. This has resulted in the overall percentage representation of women in 100 best companies for female employees going up to 30.55 per cent, from 25.25 per cent in 2016.

Tata Consultancy Services, Accenture Solutions, Deloitte in India, Procter & Gamble, IBM India are some of the corporates which figure on the list of top 10 best companies for women in India, while Northern Trust Bank, EY, People Combine Educational Initiatives, Schneider Electric India and Shell India Markets are the other companies on top 10 list.

The study points out that the top 10 companies together employ 2.36 lakhs of women, which is 50.52 per cent of all women in the list of

top 100 best companies for females.

According to study, there has been an 11 per cent surge in women workforce at entry levels in 2017, from that of 2016. Among the top 100, companies from IT/ITES sector have the highest women representation at 36 per cent in 2017. This is followed by financial services with representation of 12 per cent women workforce.

In 2012, only 27 percent of adult Indian women had a job, or were actively looking for one, compared to 79 percent of men. In fact, almost 20 million women had dropped out of the workforce between 2005 and 2012. This is equivalent to the entire population of Sri Lanka.

It is a matter of pride that today women are represented on the board of every single company that comprises the BSE 100; women have held or are currently holding leadership positions in at least nine banks, five FMCG companies and eight IT/ITeS companies in India.

But the objective here is not just to increase ‘female representation’, as a result of knee-jerk reactions, but it is the duty of corporates to align long-term organisational goals with that of diversity and inclusion of women and also their safety at workplace. Organisations, besides removing barriers to progress of women should also put such measures in place that would ensure safety to women workers.

Ensuring homogeneity in salaries, better childcare options, accommodating unique aspirations of the millennial women, flexibility in work schedules, a supportive return-to-work policy, and a better work-life balance are always important. But at the same time, women safety has also emerged as a subject of priority for mostorganizations today. Recent episodes of harassment at workplace have also spiked a fierce debate nationwide on the importance of exhibiting appropriate behaviour toward women. With increasing number of women joining the workforce, it has become critical for organizations to reinforce the need to foster safer establishments.

How to avoid another #MeToo? The key takeaway from the recent #MeToo campaign is that most film companies still don’t have adequate measures in place to protect women at the workplace. The situation is not helped by the fact that voluntary private organizations like the Cine & TV Artistes Association (CINTAA) or the Producers Guild of India do not hold the authority to either take legal action against the accused or file a complaint on behalf of the victim.

In most of the sexual harassment cases, women tend to not report it because of fear of retaliation by the harasser or the organization, while also the social stigma attached with such cases. Also, women may prefer to take care of the situation themselves rather than going through the entire complaints redressal procedure. They feel that they will be looked down upon if they report such a case, irrespective of who is at fault

#MeToo Allegations

A FIR has been filed against Bollywood veteran Nana Patekar at the Oshiwara Police Station over the sexual harassment allegations made by Tanushree Dutta. Besides Patekar, the FIR has also been lodged against director Rakesh Sarang, producer Sami Siddiqui and choreographer Ganesh Acharya under Section 354 and 509 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Actress Sandhya Mridul accused Alok Nath of sexual harassment and shared a harrowing account on her social media account.Post this, writerproducer Vinta Nanda also took to Facebook to accuse actor Alok Nath of raping her 19 years ago.

Suhel Seth has been accused by filmmaker Natashja Rathore, 27, who posted a number of screenshots of a WhatApp message, of what happened recently in a condo in Gurgaon. He has also been accused of sexual harassment and predatory behaviour at least by four women, including one who said she was a minor at the time of the alleged incident.

Several women have accused former DNA editor in chief, C.P. Surendran of behaving inappropriately with them. Karishma Upadhyay, a freelance journalist said that that most girls who worked in Bombay Mirror around this time experienced harassment or inappropriate behaviour from Surendran.

Ex-Minister of State for External Affairs M.J. Akbar threatened to take legal action against several women journalists who have accused him of sexual harassment at two different newspapers where he had been the editor. He even resigned from his post in the wake of these allegations.

Urmi Bhattacheryya, the gender editor at The Quint, accused Shibaji Roychoudhury, a film-critic at Times Now and Zoom TV of being a “sexual predator” and narrated an incident when Roychoudhury had groped her. in that situation.

So what should be the solution in such a situation?

Prior to 1997, a person facing sexual harassment at the workplace had to lodge a complaint under Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code 1860, which deals with “criminal assault of women to outrage women’s modesty” and Section 509, which punishes an individual/individuals for using a “word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman.”

The Vishakha Guidelines was soon superseded by the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention,Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (the Act), which is a legislative act in India that seeks to protect women from sexual harassment at their place of work. The Act came into force on 9 December 2013 and prevented any kind of sexual harassment introduced by the Supreme Court of India. The Act defines sexual harassment at the workplace and creates a mechanism for redressal of complaints, while also providing safeguardsagainst false or malicious charges.

The Delhi government on its part has set a deadline of November 30 for all formal institutions and organisations in the city to form internal committees (ICs) which is mandated under the Sexual Harassment of Women at

Workplace.

The government has also said that it is in the process of forming a committee to look into all issues arising from the #MeToo movement.The five-member committee, likely to be headed by retired Supreme Court judge Justice SS Nijjar will have the mandate to hear women who have publicly named their harassers. The committee is asked to submit a report in three months, while recommending the way forward to deal with the flood of sexual harassment allegations against senior leaders across professions, and suggest measures to make workplaces safer.

With the #MeToo movement gathering force in India, companies are struggling to engage with the need to make their workplaces safe by calling out and punishing sexual harassment. They are now looking to tightening policies so that the line between acceptable behaviour and sexual harassment is clear. One way is to make sure that cases are dealt with quickly.

However, zero tolerance should not just for sexual harassments but also for wrongful accusations, as pointed out by many. The Government has also shown its commitment to push corporates on compliance with various acts pertaining to women safety, especiallysexual harassment, through strict regulation and enforcement action. n

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F-secure bringing in the right focus to address security in the country Rahul Kumar as the newly appointed Country Manager of F-secure India & SAARC expresses his views on expanding business in India, the roadmap for the year ahead and how he will work on channel market. Highlighting F-Secure’s key areas, Rahul Kumar, Country Manager of F-secure India & SAARC stressed on how his company is helping its customers and become a trusted advisor to them while also defining its positioning F-Secure wants to position itself as a company that helps customers secure their data and infrastructure. To start with,F-Secure helps them to move in a step by step kind of frame of security rather just doing a bit here and there. The company also wants to bring in the right focus for them in the market by moving in a much focused manner that they know will bring in results for them as a company and help them get there. Positioning and bringing in the right focus are the two top priorities in the mind of Rahul Kumar, Country Manager, F-Secure India & SAARC. According to Rahul, the regulations that are coming in, some of which are in the draft stage are a good start. “Right now we have the flexibility to pick and choose the good things from different global regulations like GDPR or the regulations from some of the states in U.S or in Singapore or in South Africa. Thisis a step in the right direction, but there is still something left to be decided which is breach notification. Breach notification to my mind is one of those things which will do a good to the world and the country in particular. This will ensure that the company is good at response and will also indicate that the company does not lack security. But there has to be timeframe for that. This sounds very punishing in short term but in long term it sets the field very evenly for the entire country. Of course there are things that we need to keep evolving.”

F-Secure acknowledges that there are a lot of local players in the market place and there is a space where both local and global players can co-exist. If it is about their growth aspiration, F-Secure has a very solid product for them to back themselves. It never gets swayed by the fact that there could be competition offering A, B, C product. It believes in bringing in the right set of protection for the customers with their existing solutions and doing the timely upgrades. The Indian landscape is very big from an antivirus perspective and F-Secure sees a good opportunity in it.

Security Scenario in India…

Rahul confesses that there is lack of awareness in the Indian CIO eco system. “That can be improved for all of them as this market gets up every morning and has a new thing up there for everybody to consume,” Rahul says.“Customers have to understand what they need

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Rahul Kumar

Country Manager F-secure India & SAARC as there is a solution for everybody. But they also have to be sure why a customer needs a product – is it because it is an exciting product or because they are looking at security more seriously. If one realizes that need they will find a budget to meet it,” he adds.

F-Secure wishes to set the right focus for who they are and what value it can bring in.

"To me it’s always the value we hold whenever we go to our customers. We are a very fundamentally focused company. We want to focus on the right things for securingour customers and we want to lead that with the partners. We want to get to the partners and help them understand what they can do to increase their bottom line.

These are the two things we want to stress very well. We are a very channel focused company and all our products that the country sells are built for the channel. The product addresses what they meant to be addressing and that strong product functionality comes from the background of our very strong team in the company. We bring in from our experience and try to put in the products to help our customers,” he says.

He further adds, “We want the channel to instill confidence in our customers. I can certainly say that the channel will be very excited of what we will bring to the table. My interest is to go out and communicate this to the channel. We are here to help the channel grow by increasing their profitability and managing their stickiness to our customers.” n

VAR MOBILITY

Micromax unveils Spark Go, priced Lava launches OnePlus launches OnePlus 6T in Z81 featuring India at Rs.3, 999 Micromax Informatics OnePlus has launched wait to see what people Studio Mode its latest has announced a fresh premium flagship think when they use it.” addition to the Spark device, the OnePlus 6T. The OnePlus 6T has photography series – the Spark Go, in Featuring Screen Unlock, a rich and immersive partnership with Flipkart.

Running on Android Oreo (Go Edition), the new smartphone aims to massify the VoLTE experience across the country. Taking this a step further, Micromax has partnered with Reliance Jio to bring exciting offers of additional 25GB of 4G data for all Jio customers.

Targeting the new-age hyper-social consumers who are looking to upgrade from their existing 3G smartphones, Micromax aims to ride on the current wave of 4G VoLTE to enable consumers with faster internet speed.

Riding on the ongoing festive season in India, the Spark Go has been priced at Rs.3, 999 for the discerning online consumer.

Vikas Jain, CoFounder, Micromax

Informatics, says, “With the growing preference of e-commerce in India, today’s discerning online consumer is always on the lookout for a multitude of options.

Understanding these evolving needs and preferences of our audience, we are very excited to launch our latest offering – the Micromax Spark Go."

Infinix launches “HOT S3X” – an AI-selfie smartphone with notch display Infinix has added another marvel to their “selfie-centric” HOT S series in the mid-budget segment – “HOT S3X”.

The newly-launched smartphone will be available exclusively on Flipkart with the “Big Diwali Sale” starting from 1st to 5th November, 2018 in three beautiful colours – Ice Blue, Sandstone Black and Tradewinds Gray.

Infinix is known for being ahead of the curve approach towards making future-ready devices and empowers users with the best smartphone experience at the most competitive price points. Underpinning its key USP of HOT S series, the S3X combines AI-enabled advanced selfie camera technologies with massive battery and an aesthetic form.

HOT S3x comes with 16MP AI selfie camera which captures stunning selfies even in low-light with f/2.0 aperture, front flash and 4-in-1 big pixels.

Its 4-in-1 pixel technology merges 4 pixels into one pixel, which helps in capturing more light for better quality selfies, no matter what kind of scenes and light conditions you are in.

Lava International has launched Z81 with Studio Mode photography designed to capture and create extraordinary images. The Studio Mode uses Artificial Intelligence to give depth-of-field effect to produce perfect pictures.

Z81 is the only smartphone in the country, in the affordable smartphone category, to have this exemplary camera feature.

Z81’s 13MP Rear camera (with Flash) features Natural, Vibrant, Contour and Splash Mode while its 13MP front camera (with Flash) features all six.

The new Lava Z81 comes in two variants – 2GB and 3GB. 3GB variant is priced at Rs.9, 499/- and will be available in Black and Gold Colour options across national retail outlets and major e-commerce websites like Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal. 2GB variant will be launched soon by the company.

Sunil Raina, President, Lava International, said, “We are extremely excited to offer yet another first from Lava to our consumers – the very stunning and powerful Z81.

In an era of immense noise and clutter, it is important to be differentiated and stand out from the crowd; and our Z81 does exactly that with its Studio Mode. I am sure that our consumers will find it very valuable and enjoy the next level of smartphone photography.

Z81 is a true testimony to our vision of making the valuable technologies accessible.”

Lava Z81 runs on Android 8.1 + Star OS 5.0 and is powered with 3GB RAM and 32GB ROM – offering seamless smartphone experience and ample storage for music, videos, pictures, applications and other data to its consumers.

the fastest in-display fingerprint technology, the OnePlus 6T provides users with a fast, natural and intuitive way to unlock your device, while benefiting from a large display with minimal bezels. Taking just 0.34 seconds to unlock and supported by sophisticated self-learning algorithms, Screen Unlock sets a new standard for smartphones.

Pete Lau, Founder and CEO, OnePlus, says, “We constantly challenge ourselves to give people the best experience possible, to do what’s right, no matter what. A great user experience means your phone needs to get out of the way and make you feel free – it has to enhance your life instead of distracting you from it. I’m so proud of what we’ve built with the OnePlus 6T, and can’t

display, with a 6.41-inch Optic AMOLED display at a 19.5:9 aspect ratio for great viewing angles. As

durable as it is beautiful, the front of the OnePlus 6T is protected by the latest Corning Gorilla Glass 6, seamlessly flowing into the glass design. Over 40 different manufacturing steps go into crafting the 3D glass back of the OnePlus 6T, which is made from multiple layers of glass.

Ziox Mobiles launches “Duotel D1” budget smartphone priced at Rs.5, 399/Ziox Mobiles has introduced its budgeted smartphone range “Duotel Smartphones” in the Indian market. The first “Duotel D1” has been tailored as per the needs of the millennial generation, with superfast 4G connectivity and brighter and bigger display.

Combining high-quality construction with aesthetic design, the device is crafted to perfection, making the users stand out from the crowd. Power-packed with 4.9-inch full wide VGA along with Full view display and 2.5D Curved Glass, the smartphone brings vivid viewing experience that makes everything come alive, with unmatched clarity and natural colours.

Powered by 1.4 GHz Quad-Core Processor, Duotel D1 delivers blazing,

super-fast performance.

For an unmatched user experience, the smartphone comes with 1GB RAM and 8GB ROM, allowing users to multitask with ease and speed all day.

Complementing its unbeatable performance is the latest Android GO operating system that thrills users with a seamless multitasking and smooth operating experience.

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Movers & Shakers

F5 Networks appoints Edgar Dias as India MD

F5 Networks has announced the appointment of Edgar Dias as its new Managing Director for India with effect from 12th November, 2018.

Dias has over 22 years of experience in the industry and will be responsible for managing and expanding F5’s India operations.

Prior to F5, Dias was Managing Director at ServiceNow India & SAARC. He was also Managing Director at Brocade Communications India & SAARC and has held various senior roles at Juniper Networks, Nortel Networks, Alteon Websystems and Wipro Infotech.

Avaya ropes in Gaurav Passi as President of Avaya Cloud

Vishal Gupta quits BMC

Vishal Gupta, who has been the face of BMC Software for its Channel business in India and worked for close to 7 years, has quit BMC Software to pursue other opportunities.

Vishal has to his credit building the BMC software’s channel and distribution ecosystem in India from ground zero and is also transforming BMC’s channel business in India from a pure, fulfilment channel to a vibrant channel company capable of leading and closing deals independently.

With 17+ years of sales experience, his role has been to build and lead channel partner and GSI ecosystem sales for India & SAARC.

Vinod Pisharody is the new CTO at Array Networks

Avaya Holdings has announced that Gaurav Passi, a recognized leader in the cloud-based communications industry, has joined Avaya as president of its cloud business group. Reporting to Jim Chirico, Avaya President and Chief Executive Officer, Passi will be responsible for further accelerating the company’s delivery of cloud-based solutions and driving continued momentum to grow Avaya’s market share in UCaaS (Unified Communications-as-aService) and CCaaS (Contact Centre-as-a-Service) worldwide.

Passi brings over a decade of cloud-industry executive experience to Avaya.

Array Networks has announced the appointment of Vinod Pisharody as Chief Technology Officer (CTO), with immediate effect. Vinod brings over 20 years of experience to Array Networks. He will be responsible for evolving Array's technology strategy and driving product innovation.

Pisharody joins Array from F5 Networks, where he served as Architect for the company's SSL Orchestrator, SSL VPN, Secure Web Gateway and Web Access Management product lines. His career in technology also includes roles as product development manager and principal software engineer at F5 Networks, principal software architect at Array Networks and senior software engineer at Tata Infotech.

Wipro names Arundhati Bhattacharya as one of its independent directors

Valuepoint appoints Raj Reddy as its Founder & CEO

Wipro has appointed Arundhati Bhattacharya, a widely acclaimed banker with four decades of experience across India’s financial sector, to its Board of Directors for a period of five years effective January 1, 2019, subject to the approval of shareholders.

Bhattacharya, who was the first woman chairperson of the State Bank of India, will serve as an independent Director. She brings with her a deep understanding of all the facets of banking including credit, foreign exchange, treasury, retail operations, mergers and acquisitions and the capital and bond markets.

Valuepoint Systems has announced the joining of Raj Reddy as the Founder and CEO of Valuepoint Digital, to drive its journey as digital transformation catalyst in delivering next-gen digital infra, automation, cloud, digital product engineering and support services.

Reddy is a dynamic and accomplished business leader with a razorsharp focus on enterprise value creation in mature, growth, start-up, troubled and turnaround organizations. He is highly result-oriented and strongly believes in building scalable businesses for profitable growth through well-proven principles he has architected over 20+ years.

Apple India assigns Nokia's Ashish Choudhary as India head

Paytm Payments Bank appoints Satish Kumar Gupta as MD and CEO

Ashish Choudhary, EVP and chief business officer of Nokia Networks has joined Apple as its India head. Choudhary, who will take charge in January 2009 will oversee sales function at Apple India.

Choudhary was part of Nokia’s India team that helped the phone maker in driving growth and setting up its manufacturing facility. He has headed several assignments at Nokia, including head of global services, head of Asia / Middle East, Africa and head of global sales (customer operations). He joined Nokia in 2003.

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Satish Kumar Gupta has been appointed as MD and CEO of Paytm Payments Bank after three months of the resignation of Renu Satti as Paytm Payments Bank CEO. Gupta, a former Chief Project officer at NPCI and Deputy General Manager at SBI is going to be the third CEO of PPB. Previously, Renu Satti moved from PPB CEO post to head ‘New Retail’ business of Paytm.

Shinjini Kumar was first hired MD and CEO of the Paytm Payments Bank.

www.varindia.com November 2018

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RNI - NO 72399/1999 Printing Date 18 & 19

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

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56 pages including cover

Date of Posting 20 & 21 every month