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2019

DIGISOL launches Industrial Grade Switch range BenQ Zowie announces new RL2455S e-sports monitor

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What 2019 has in store for the Indian Tech industry?

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TRAI's new DTH & cable operators rule from February 1, 2019

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) will come out with new rules for DTH and cable operators from February 1, 2019 and has started sending out text messages to all subscribers about the upcoming changes to television tariffs, which apply to all DTH, local cable operators as well. The new rules mean that the customers have to choose their own 100 or more channels, and pay exactly what the broadcaster is charging for these channels.

The new rules will empower customers to pay for what channels that they watch, rather than rely on pre-decided packs

by DTH companies or their local cable operators.

SMEs get relief as GST exemption limit doubled to Rs 40 lakh

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council has ladled out benefits to medium and small-scale enterprises (MSMEs) with regard to GST exemption and has approved 6 per cent composition scheme for the services sector.

The council has increased the GST exemption limit to Rs 20 lakh from Rs 10 lakh for the North-eastern States, and to Rs 40 lakh from Rs 20 lakh for the rest of the country.

The council also decided to extend the composition scheme to traders from informal sector rendering services or mixed supplies with a turnover up to Rs 50 lakh and composition rate for services sector has been fixed at 6 per cent.

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HELLO INDIA

Will 2019 be the year of data economy?

The New Year is a good time to start with new initiatives and reflect on what your goals are. India’s advanced public digital infrastructure, growing digitization, availability of data and growing digital payments are creating an unprecedented opportunity for disruption in lending to entities - individuals or MSME. Thankfully, India is a data rich country. Our laws need to empower all of us to access and transfer all our data safely. Data about entities is captured by many institutions – financial entities, utilities, government agencies, e-commerce players, etc. If we are to empower each Indian to have full control over their data, then the law has to mandate each entity (public or private) which owns any person’s data to be obliged to share it with a potential lender electronically on person’s explicit consent. To safeguard privacy, a law has to mandate that the data once gathered has to be deleted once the purpose is served.

India is the only large economy with public digital infrastructure in the form of the so called India Stack— another critical factor driving India’s digital evolution and its shift towards a cashless economy. A report shows that nearly 40 percent of Indian MSMEs are forced to borrow from informal sources that charge an average of 2.5 times higher interest rates than those in the formal sector. This sets MSME lending up for disruption and offers a meaningful market opportunity for both innovative start-ups as well as traditional lenders.

With all good things happening, it is not surprising that risks are also evolving with the growing cyber threats.

Looking ahead, 2019 will surely bring an evolution of cyber threats, which continue to plague the world and in particular small to mid-sized businesses, which carry a disproportionate amount of risk and serve as back doors into larger enterprise systems.

Additionally, key sectors such as critical infrastructure – or the commons on which markets rely – are massively exposed and woefully unprepared.

Invariably, the New Year will bring new twists and turns in the cyber landscape, with some cyber conundrums as well.

The second most critical sector is the healthcare; 80% of all healthcare data is unstructured and for clinicians, doctors, nurses and surgeons, an incredible amount of insight remains hidden away in troves of clinical notes, EHR data, medical images, and omits data to understand patient records better. We are witnessing a revolution in the healthcare industry currently, in which there is an opportunity now to employ a new model of improved, personalized, evidence and data-driven clinical care. The healthcare faces many challenges, including developing, deploying, and integrating machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) into clinical workflow and care delivery.

Going forward, 85 percent of enterprises will use AI by 2020; only 25 percent are getting their initiatives off the ground now or are planning to start in the near term and the organizations need to understand that they are not just purchasing a product rather they are buying a set of capabilities that pervade every part of the organization.

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December 2018

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CONTENTS

COVER STORY | 34

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.

REGULARS Round About Channel Chief Hot Bytes On the Ramp Voice N Data Channel Buzz Movers & Shakers

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8 10 12, 14 16, 18 20 22 23

FACE TO FACE 21 25

India Market holds immense importance for SUSE

34

A Simpler, Easier to understand partner program is the key to Success!

TECH TRENDS 41

What 2019 has in store for the Indian Tech industry?

VAR SECURITY 48

CyberArk focuses on Privilege Access Accounts

‘We want to be a leader in open source based hyperconverged solutions’

VAR CORPORATE 24

Barracuda gives an edge to Partners with latest technologies to secure customer business

EVENTS 26

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VAR MOBILITY VARINDIA Tech Summit sparks discussions on how Emerging Technologies bring newer opportunities

LEAD STORY 30

Are we really aware of what Mobile Malware is?

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TECNO to continue its focus on offline channel

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ROUND ABOUT

George Orwell, Artificial Intelligence and My Predilections!

It appears the whole world is looking at AI as a futuristic digital platform that can bring soccer from drudgery, human errors, subjectivity etc. no matter even if they can make mankind redundant. At least that is what many feel. Is it because the humans are more for leisure centric and less inclined to work?

Students of political science would vouch that the first form of democracy originated in the Greek city states. Those city states were too small and inhabited by equally small number of people. Decisions were taken collectively ascertaining the views of everyone who could express themselves and that way neutral to gender, age and what have you. People used to assemble at an appointed place and each decision that the city state was contemplating to implement would be discussed and finally put to vote possibly by raising hands or by any other methods since ballot boxes, and papers were non - existent several years before Christ. That system, history tells us, had worked well. Those well-tested methods of knowing the minds of the people for every development projects might have been discarded, when population of a city state would have swelled beyond manageable levels or when a neighboring state or a predator from a far flung area would have conquered the city state and disbanded the democratic system and resorted to dictatorship, where rights of the conquered were seldom respected or even heard.

The other thought that influenced me for dwelling on the subject matter was about Marxian concept of “withering away of the state”. Let me make it clear that I am not going to dwell on anything politics and that way one should not think I am going to hail George Orwell’s “1984”, which explains how state would become omnipresent in a totalitarian regime. Karl Marx, the greatest thinker and revolutionary of his time, said that the state will wither away. The idea behind such line of thinking was that after a lapse of time, the control of the state will erode and people might feel that there is not much of role for a state when every need of the human beings are met.

I am going to dwell on how AI is going to impact politics or electoral process. Could AI be the sole arbitrator to decide for a state what to do and what should not be done? I understand that there over 160 countries in the world and every landmass call itself as a country has a government either elected or monarchy or in the form of dictatorship. Let us look at every state from the smallest to the biggest, infant democracies to oldest and strongest democracies. One striking thing that you would find is allegations and counter allegations on how the election process was manipulated, election rigging and in some places bloody feud let loose in the aftermath of elections. In some places, elections were postponed and countermanded for one reason or other. Yet, trillions of dollars are spent for conducting elections. In places where there is a possibility of rigging there, United Nations appoint neutral observers. Yet there are increasing number of complaints about manipulations and rigging. It could be just allegations without much substance. Yet, these unsavory developments mar the civic life, not to speak about scores of people who are killed in the election related violence and billions worth property that are damaged in the process. Welfare economists are advocating secondary level of poverty in developed world, which is more relative and less in absolute sense. It is like someone losing job in the US. Of course, he or she can claim social security to cover some expenses.

Assume for a while all political systems across the world are disbanded and every country has been given a central monitoring system enabled

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by artificial intelligence. Every person across the world is given a mobile phone with a lot of Apps embedded in it. The central monitoring system asks you to give your preference for implementation of a project. People need to click in the mobile and communicate their preference, which will be received at the central monitoring system. After elaborate data mining, the central system will take a call whether the project should be implemented or not. In this dispensation, you do not need an elected representative to voice your concern in the Parliament, assembly or any such representative body. A citizen is in direct connect with the decision maker and his vote counts for taking every decision. All those functions would be carried out by the digital platforms which will have a central processing apparatus and connected devices such as internet connections and mobile phones. Why then should we have elected governments, which are generally perceived as a drain on resources, since every country is spending huge resources not only for conducting elections but also upkeep of elected representatives?

Is it a safe bet against proliferation of scams, corruptions and all those sinister activities, which many feel, at least some of the elected representatives indulge across the world? Scams, corruptions and all those manmade machinations will become a thing of the past if AI embedded robot or an Alexi picks up best bid for construction of a bridge or a dam or a road or a highway or what have you. If the best student in a class is picked up by a robot, who can allege that selection is partisan or arbitrary.

If a robotic surgeon does a surgery, who can claim that there is a doctor’s error while performing a complicated the surgery? One can extrapolate this situation to many contexts and backgrounds to ensure transparency and fair play in the working of a system. Then the question boils down to why we are not doing it: who will bell the cat. Of course, such transparent acts and procedures may not go well with the vested interests, particularly those who have a stake in the opaque systems.

Do my predilections have any parallel with Orwellian narration? Is AI that I am advocating is similar to the command system that Orwell has abhorred? To my great disappointment, I found out that the supreme power of technology that I am advocating is in a way similar to the omnipresent command economy dubbed by Orwell. In both the dispensations, human freedom is curtailed and power of ingenuity is discounted. Will that do good or bad to the mankind? I believe in technology, its power but it as an aid of human civilization and not a master to own and control it.

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CHANNEL CHIEF TeamViewer has announced the opening of its first India office in Mumbai as a key driver for its long-term growth initiative in the South Asia region. TeamViewer’s Mumbai office will act as a sales, marketing, and support centre to provide best-in-class remote connectivity solutions for a dynamically growing local user base on the subcontinent with more than 100 million installations to date. Konstantin Ebert, Vice President Sales EMEA, APAC and Global Channels – TeamViewer speaks to VARINDIA, talking about the kind of growth he is looking from the Indian market -

TeamViewer scans for partners to grow its business in the India market Can you provide an overview of TeamViewer’s business module, key focus area, expansion and your channel strategies?

This year 2018, we started to build a strategy to go much more detailed into Asia. We have identified few core markets in Asia - China, Japan and India, where we want to become physically present and much more serious in the market. We have always done business in India and have a very big brand reputation in India.

Our software is very broad spread, we have more than 100 million download and installation of our software. We have made our software for private user free and that is what is helping the software to spread.

But to grow more with the enterprise customers in India, we started to establish a legal entity in India and decided that we would open our first office in Mumbai. We started building a team here and hired Kunal Patel as our head of the country here locally. Kunal started to build a full team around sales, presales, post sales, support for our customers and enterprise sales.

We were initially between 7 and 10 people, now 7 more are already onboard. Our focus is to cover the market much more as an Indian company then just remotely from Germany or Adelaide in Australia, where we have been so far.

fragmented players; very often when they come to larger installations, they have limitations and functionality and bandwidth.

The market has grown a lot for us because we have many devices and our number of devices has grown tremendously. Today globally, we have 1.8 billion devices online, devices that have downloaded TeamViewer. That growth has been phenomenal for us. Now with everything coming up around IoT used cases, we see further a big growth and potential of connecting massive numbers of devices.

We can add a lot of value, but at the end we only provide a great software and technology to make successful projects, we need implementation partners and we need partners who are reselling the software.But more importantly,we are working in the customer projects, bringing projects to life.

India is a market for business sales expansions.How do you see financial year 2019 and what will be your top priorities for the Indian market?

How is the remote access and collaboration platform growing Our first priority was to establish a legal entity - we have done that; starting to build a globally versus India?

We see India as one of the most exciting market because first it is very big;second, it’s a fast growing large economy. It has a highly skilled population, who have lot of knowledge around IT, lot of creativity, software development and so on. That's why we took the decision to come here and invest in the market because we see all these trends and eco system developing and we believe that we could add a lot of value to those.

team - we have done that too. We already have a partner network but we would like to grow our partner network, especially around the enterprise business.We are looking for more partners, who can really generate together with us in enterprise projects. We see a minimum of 100 % growth in next year in India. We have put the team together and now we are in the mode of acquiring channel partners who help us developing the projects together with our enterprise customers.

If you look at the government and public sector, keeping Presently how many channel the factor of developed and partners you are working with? developing markets in mind, what We are today working with one distributer How hasthe perception of would you like to share with your - Ingram Micro. We have 2 platinum partners remote access and collaboration partners?

- Softline and Software One. We have 150 platform space changed the For us, channel has become a very important registered partners - some work on case by case, market in the last few years? pillar of our business and if you look at how while some work more seriously together with

Earlier the focus was mostly on remote support but today we see more focus in connecting any kind of devices. It has a lot to do with remote support still but also at the same time remote access, remote control as well as collaboration. We see the market as very fragmented. Then you have lot of small

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we operate, we do not provide any professional services, we do not provide installation or complex project management but this is an element where we fully rely on partners. Looking at the government, there are a lots of initiatives happening in the government, from remote work to digitalisation, to smart cities and so on.

us. We started to engage well with some of the largest integrators as well. We are really looking forward to further growing that ecosystem, especially also to make sure we are covering all the key regions in India; we have several regions with white spots and we of course want to have partners in those markets.

Natalia Nagar | natalia.nagar@redington.co.in | +91 9366632100

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HOT BYTES

DTDC Express safeguards its network by deploying Fortinet Security Fabric

Fortinet has announced that DTDC Express Ltd has bolstered its existing Fortinet Security Fabric deployment, which spans 30 global offices and over 450 branches in India, by modernizing their data center and branch firewalls.

To better defend against sophisticated cyberthreats seen in recent years and provide identity-based access to applications, DTDC Express decided to upgrade its existing firewall implementation to segment and control its network. The growing business demanded advanced threat protection capabilities with higher throughput to provide real-time connectivity and support for its end-to-end consignment tracking and tracing of shipments.

Its network had more than 15,000 users, so device identification and management were critical to provide access based on the type of device, operating system and the IP address connecting to the network.

The refreshed Fortinet Security Fabric deployment allowed DTDC to secure its network and data center with intrusion prevention and detection, content filtering and web filtering, application control and two-factor authentication to protect its web and mobile-based tracking applications.

Tech Data to distribute Fujitsu’s products in India

Tech Data has signed a distribution agreement with Fujitsu India. The agreement will see Tech Data distribute the entire Fujitsu India’s portfolio of IT products, solutions and related services to their valued customers in India.

“This distribution agreement with Fujitsu enables Tech Data to offer Fujitsu India’s complete portfolio of end-to-end solutions to our Indian customers,” said Sundaresan Kanappan, Vice- President & Country General Manager, India, Tech Data. “Our best-in-class technical capabilities and strong distribution network will help expand Fujitsu’s reach and penetration in the local market.”

“We are pleased to announce our association with Tech Data, and this partnership is important to Fujitsu’s distribution portfolio. Tech Data’s leadership, excellence in marketing and sales of IT solutions will help us to expand the market for our products,” said Mehul Doshi, Head of Product Business, Fujitsu India. “We look forward to a strong partnership with Tech Data and a steady market growth for our products, services and solutions in India.”

Atos and Indian Government support India’s NSM by signing HPC agreement

Kaspersky Lab enters Sri Lanka market with its new distributor SATL

Kaspersky Lab has been successfully expanding its business in the South Asian region. Continuing to have a stronghold in the Indian market, they have now decided to achieve a similar hold in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

After a successful launch in Bangladesh in November, Kaspersky Lab is now set to make a successful launch in Sri Lanka with the help of their new distributors South Asian Technologies Pvt. Ltd (SATL). Together, both the companies Kaspersky Lab and South Asian Technologies recently conducted three launch events across Sri Lanka.

Held in three main cities – Galle, Colombo, Kandy, Kaspersky Lab aims on achieving their vision of really strong cybersecurity Sri Lanka and are ready to invest a great amount of their time, intelligence, energy and expertise to make sure that they make Sri Lanka a cyber strong country.

Sri Lanka’s strategic location ensures a great beginning for a business expansion.

TCL to construct its first overseas smart manufacturing industrial park in Tirupati

TCL has kicked off the construction of its first-ever smart integrated manufacturing industrial park in an overseas market in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, India. The move signifies India’s strategic position in TCL’s global development and the brand’s commitment to the Indian market.

Situated in Tirupati, the primary facility of the industrial park is the panel module factory, which is the first overseas production unit of TCL’s panel subsidiary Shenzhen China Star Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd (CSOT). The CSOT panel module factory will produce screens for TVs and mobile phones, with a designed production capacity of eight million 22-inch to 55-inch, large-sized TV screens and 30 million 3.5-inch to 8-inch, small-sized mobile screens per year.

The investment in the panel module factory in India marks the first step in CSOT’s overseas deployment. Upon completion, the project will help realize CSOT’s capabilities in smart manufacturing and product delivery on a global scale, providing services for customers and partners.

Galtech Infosolutions to distribute Toshiba’s multifunction peripherals in India

Atos has signed an HPC agreement with the C-DAC (Centre for Development of Advanced Computing), an organization within the MeitY (Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology of India), in the presence of French Minister for External Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian, and the Secretary of the Ministry of Electronics & IT India, Ajay Prakash Sawhney, in New Delhi. This agreement is part of India’s NSM (National Supercomputing Mission).

This project will see Atos deploy its BullSequana supercomputers, including the recently announced BullSequana XH2000 in various academic and research institutions, making Atos a leading supercomputing provider in India.

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Toshiba TEC Singapore has entered into partnership with Galtech Infosolutions for the sale and service distribution of Toshiba multifunction office peripheral systems.

With Galtech’s strong business presence and network in the Northern and Southern parts of India, collaboration between Toshiba TEC and Galtech is a powerful step forward in the expansion of Toshiba’s awardwinning MFPs penetration across India.

"We are very pleased to make this announcement with Galtech," said Takeshi Kimura, General Manager, Toshiba TEC Singapore. "Customers in India are continuously looking for the latest innovations that strengthen operations as well as the financial bottom line. We believe Galtech Infosolutions has all the capabilities and industry expertise to represent Toshiba in providing the highest level of satisfactory office printing requirements to these parts of India.”

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HOT BYTES

HID Global’s goID to help Government Agencies adopt Mobile Citizen IDs

HID Global has announced that its HID goID solution has been extended to provide an end-to-end system for deploying and managing a mobile citizen ID program. From issuance through verification, HID goID is backed by the same high security standards for data, communication and privacy protection that are used in today’s physical electronic ID (eID) programs.

“This is a major step in delivering the full value of our goID solution, as we extend its capabilities for provisioning, updating and revoking mobile IDs to include the full range of citizen ID program functionality,” said Wei Jin Lee, Regional Director Secure Issuance, APAC with HID Global. “Governments now have everything they need to move to a fully mobile society, including support for integrating goID with existing issuance systems, developing a citizen app, and ensuring compliance with international standards for digital credentials.”

HID goID includes off-the-shelf data structures enabling governments to issue mobile Passports that will help comply with digital travel credentials currently being developed by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and to issue mobile driver’s licences that will help promote compliance with ISO18013-5 specifications being developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

457% rise in cybercrime in India in five years – ASSOCHAM-NEC study

A recent ASSOCHAM-NEC joint study says that India has witnessed a 457-per cent rise in cybercrime incidents under the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000 from the year of 2011 to 2016.

Between 2012 and 2017, the number of internet users grew at a CAGR of 44% which has led India to be placed third in terms of number of internet users in the world after the USA and China. Symantec Corp. ranked India among top five countries to be affected by cybercrime, noted the study titled “Digital Policing – Smart Policing for Public Safety”, conducted by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) in association with NEC. To establish a robust three-tiered structure comprising of Central Cyber Cell, District Cyber Cells and Police Station Cyber Teams across the entire jurisdiction of National Capital Territory to deal with cybercrimes and to handle the growing menace of cyber frauds and online harassment, highlighted the study.

D-Link to strengthen its SMB and Enterprise business

D-Link (India) Ltd has made some extensive plans to strengthen its Enterprise business segment. From expanding its product line, to establishing a dedicated vertical\-specific team, to investing in enhancing its support infrastructure for enterprise customers, D-Link has brought about significant transformation in its enterprise business operations. In line with its enterprise strategy to enhance focus on partner/ system integrator engagement, D-Link has now appointed Chetan Sabnis as Principal Consultant, D-Link partner community.

Rohit Purushottam, VP – Enterprise Sales, D-Link (India) Ltd, said, “Enterprise business remains crucial to D-Link’s growth strategy for 2019. SMB, project business, large enterprise, Telcos are some of the key areas that we are focusing on and for which we have dedicated resources to deliver results. Chetan with his rich industry experience will be responsible for driving overall enterprise business, while creating an exclusive network of system integrators. I wish Chetan great success in his new role and look forward to seeing him contribute to our enterprise growth story.”

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NSE inks a MoU with IIT Kanpur to strengthen its cyber security solutions

The National Stock Exchange of India has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with IIT Kanpur, one of the premier technology institutes in the country, to work together on industry-leading Cyber Security solutions and practices.

The NSE-IIT Kanpur partnership aims to develop and create an environment to not only negotiate and deal with the current and future cyber security challenges in the Indian financial and capital markets ecosystem, but also to develop tools to further strengthen the cyber security framework.

Vikram Limaye, MD & CEO, NSE, says, “This is a great opportunity for NSE to collaborate with the academia to augment its position as a thought leader and leading adopter of cutting- edge technologies in the field of cyber security. NSE is proud to associate with IIT Kanpur in this endeavour and help in enhancing the cyber security posture of India’s capital markets. This partnership will significantly bolster our established cyber security practices and defense strategies.”

IBM bags 9,100 record patents in 2018

IBM inventors have received a record 9,100 patents in 2018, marking the company’s 26th consecutive year of U.S. patent leadership. IBM led the industry in the number of artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, cybersecurity and quantum computing-related patent grants.

Ginni Rometty, IBM Chairman, President & CEO, says, “IBM is committed to leading the way on the technologies that change the way the world works – and solving problems many people have not even thought of yet. Our clients and their customers are the beneficiaries of these innovations, particularly our leadership in AI, cloud, blockchain and security for business.”

Overall, nearly half of the 2018 patents relate to pioneering advancements in AI, cloud computing, cybersecurity, blockchain and quantum computing.

The industry-leading 1,600 AI patents IBM inventors were granted in 2018 include new ways to use AI to help us converse and protect the earth’s lakes and waterways. AI also played a large role in the more than 1,400 cybersecurity patents IBM inventors were granted in 2018, including an AI-powered security approach to combat voice phishing.

UiPath joins hands with Sopra Steria as its official training partner for RPA

UiPath has entered into partnership with Sopra Steria as its Official Training Partner for RPA training globally.

Under the tie-up, Sopra Steria would offer RPA Developer 1 Foundation 1 training, RPA Developer Level 2 Orchestrator, and RPA Developer Level 3 Advanced Training on the UiPath RPA platform. The training will be delivered through both onsite and virtual classroom modes.

Rajeev Mittal, Managing Director – Sales, UiPath India, says,” RPA is growing at such a rapid pace that we would very soon hit a demand-supply gap in the availability of RPA skills. UiPath official training partners such as Sopra Steria contribute their powerful consulting and implementation expertise to deliver world-class training and mentoring."

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ON THE RAMP

Microsoft introduces Intelligent Cloud Hub program to build an AI-ready workforce

Comviva introduces Digital Services Delivery Platform DSDP 2.0

Comviva has announced a new version of its Digital Services Delivery Platform, empowering mobile operators to move beyond mere connectivity and embrace new growth opportunities in digital services.

With increasing digitization, many service providers are in the driver’s seat in terms of value creation, as it has allowed them to become true enablers of digital experience by facilitating digital services of their partners. And, as this transformation gathers speed, a centralized strategy will ensure that the transition from physical to digital services results in increased efficiency and more revenue opportunities for the operator.

In addition to Content, service, device, fraud and API management, the platform brings new capabilities powered by Artificial intelligence including Image & Video recognition, Image & Video moderation, Media transcoding, Object detection, Auto meta-data generation, NLP for conversational interfaces, Transliteration & Translation, Text to Speech conversion and Image Database Management.

Dell EMC announces Cyber Recovery Software

Dell EMC has announced Cyber Recovery software, along with Cyber Recovery Services designed to help provide a last line of data protection defense against ransomware and destructive cyber attacks. The new software includes innovative automation, workflow and security analytics tools to ensure gold copies of critical data are isolated yet available so business processes can be resumed as quickly as possible in the event of a destructive cyber attack.

“Data Protection infrastructure and architectures, commonplace in IT, are optimized for Operational Recovery, as well as Disaster Recovery, but these systems are not a sufficient defense for sophisticated cyberattacks,” said RipuBajwa, Director & General Manager – Data Protection Solutions, Dell EMC, India. “With the launch of the Dell EMC Cyber Recovery Software and Services, we are helping organizations ensure true data isolation and a last line of data protection defense for business-critical data from a variety cyber threats.”

Dell EMC Cyber Recovery is a new software that integrates with Dell EMC Data Domain protection storage hardware. It provides a solution that combines the benefits of data isolation and business continuity.

Microsoft has introduced Intelligent Cloud Hub program in India to help build AI and cloud computing skills required for future jobs. Meant for STEM, medical management and research institutions, it is designed to empower their faculty to impart future-ready skills to students. The program will also help drive disruptive innovations in research through AI. India is the first country to roll it out, and Microsoft has invited participation from deemed universities and NIRF-ranked institutions across the country.

Microsoft will set up the core AI infrastructure and an IoT Hub for all selected campuses. The company will also offer a wide range of AI developmental tools and Azure AI Services such as Microsoft Cognitive Services, Azure Machine Learning and Bot Services. Training will include development workshops to help both the faculty and students build their skills and expertise in cloud computing, data sciences, AI and IoT. Additionally, it will assist faculty in strategizing content and curricula for project-based and experiential learning.

Toshiba extends CANVIO HDD portfolio

Toshiba Electronics Asia (Singapore) (“Toshiba”) has announced a new addition to its popular family of CANVIO external hard drives (HDDs), a 4TB option in its PREMIUM, ADVANCE, BASICS and READY series.

The 4TB option gives up to 33 per cent compared with 3TB extra storage for individuals and small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that want to store large files and back up their data. Using 1TB platter technology allows the 4TB CANVIO models to maintain the same lowprofile design as 3TB models. All models support Windows and Mac operating systems and are compatible with both USB 3.0 and USB 2.0.

“The amount of data a person or company needs to store and back up is increasing exponentially. Toshiba constantly strives to give our customers cutting-edge technologies with ever greater storage in a portable, lightweight and attractive design,” says Osamu Ikeda, General Manager, Sales & Marketing Division, Toshiba Electronics Asia (Singapore).

DIGISOL launches Industrial Grade Switch range

DIGISOL Systems extends its Industrial Grade switches portfolio by launching DG-IS1006GP Unmanaged PoE Gigabit range of switches.

Equipped with 4 10/100/1000M PoE ports, 2 1000M SFP ports and 2 10/100/1000M Copper Uplink ports, the switch provides abundant and flexible connection. DG-IS1006GP series of switches supports surge protection to ensure stability for greater user flexibility.

Zendesk launches open CRM Platform – Zendesk Sunshine on AWS platform

Zendesk has announced that Amazon Web Services (AWS) powers the infrastructure behind its new CRM platform, Zendesk Sunshine. Built on AWS, Sunshine allows businesses to connect and understand all their customer data, wherever it lives, and gives their developers the ability to build and deploy customer apps and services faster.

By building on AWS, the security, scalability, and reliability of AWS is built into the core of Sunshine, making the CRM platform more modern, flexible, and open than traditional platforms. Businesses can now gain the benefits of the cloud for quickly and easily moving data between Sunshine and their systems and applications.

As part of this relationship, Zendesk plans to release a number of solutions and connectors to AWS to help developers and IT professionals access their data simply and easily. In addition to a Zendesk Marketplace solution with Amazon Connect, Sunshine will connect with various AWS services, such as Amazon Kinesis, Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon Redshift, Amazon SageMaker, and Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VCP) AWS PrivateLink.

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The DG-IS1006GP switches series consist of two variants – DGIS1006GPH-A and DG-IS1006GPF-A. Both the variants feature 4 Giga PoE ports, 2 Gigabit and 2 Gigabit SFP ports. However, the key differentiator is the PoE Budget. DG-IS1006GPH-A comes with the power 60Watts, while DG-IS1006GPF-A comes with the power of 150 Watts.

The DG-IS1006GP series switches are engineered to perform in harsh outdoor and industrial manufacturing environments. Featuring 6KV LAN surge protection and a wide temperature range (-40°C to +75°C), the switch ensures highest reliability of PoE systems while delivering network speeds of up to 1000 Mbps to eliminate bottlenecks.

www.varindia.com

December 2018

9

ON THE RAMP

Array announces vAPV delivery controller on the Google Cloud Marketplace

HyperX releases Alloy FPS RGB gaming keyboard

HyperX has announced the launch of its HyperX Alloy FPS RGBTM mechanical gaming keyboard in India. The Alloy FPS RGB keyboard features Kailh Silver Speed mechanical key switches that offer shorter key travel time and less actuation force for faster gameplay. The full-size RGB keyboard features a solid steel alloy frame in a compact design that frees up table space for the mouse and mousepad. Alloy FPS RGB mechanical gaming keyboard is priced at Rs.12, 900. It is available through the HyperX network of retail and e-tail outlets in India and it is backed by a two-year warranty.

HyperX is augmenting its line of Alloy FPS keyboards by now offering Kailh Silver Speed key switches on the Alloy FPS RGB. The Kailh Silver Speed key switches feature a light 40g actuation force and are rated for 70 million key presses. With exposed LED lights on the key switch housing and five brightness levels, the keyboard offers brighter and more radiant RGB lighting.

The keyboard also offers Game Mode to easily disable the Windows key to prevent gameplay interruptions, 100-per cent anti-ghosting and full N-Key rollover functionality.

MediaTek brings Helio P90 SoC with AI architecture

MediaTek has announced the launch of the Helio P90 system-on-chip (SoC), which features APU 2.0, its new-generation AI architecture for a great AI processing boost. With an impressive industry-leading 1127 GMACs (2.25TOPs) performance, the Helio P90 boasts flagship device level AI power.

The Helio P90 built-in processing unit – APU 2.0 designed by MediaTek can deliver a new level of AI experiences that are 4X more powerful than the Helio P70 and Helio P60 chipsets. It helps users perform intensive AI tasks effortlessly with faster and more accurate results while at the same time delivering longer battery life.

“The Helio P90 gives device makers the ability to offer outstanding camera features, battery life, performance and top of the line AI capabilities, while making devices accessible to mass-market consumers,” said TL Lee, General Manager of MediaTek’s Wireless Communication business unit.

Panasonic launches new handheld TOUGHBOOK devices for evolving mobile workforce

Panasonic has unveiled its next generation of highly capable handheld TOUGHBOOK, FZ-T1 and L1 – a series of slimline, rugged model perfect for today’s evolving mobile workforces seeking an all-in-one solution. The brand-new TOUGHBOOK devices are one of the most versatile and compact Android-based offerings that are boasted by Panasonic’s industry-leading reputation for durable design and flexible functionality.

Stocked with multiple evolutionary characteristics alongside a multifaceted functionality range, the FZ-T1 and L1 can be used for shelf stocking, order taking, logistical record keeping, queue busting and long lasting field use.

Further, for clear communication in busy work environments up to construction site noise levels, each product alike is equipped with noise suppression technology and loudspeaker.

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Array Networks has announced immediate availability of its vAPV virtual application delivery controller on the Google Cloud Marketplace.

Running on Google Compute Engine, Array's virtual ADC provides organizations deploying applications or services on Google Cloud the ability to enhance availability, performance and security of these applications and services either in a pure public cloud environment or in conjunction with private data centers. What's more, the availability of the vAPV virtual application delivery controller on Google Cloud Platform enables new deployment models for customers seeking portability and utility pricing for applications and services.

Array's vAPV is a full featured, all-in-one ADC product that offers a broad range of functions such as Layer 3 through 7 server load balancing, content routing, SSL offloading and bridging, caching and compression, multi-layer security, clustering and high availability, link load balancing and global server load balancing (GSLB). This functionality is critical as organizations increasingly move to private, public and hybrid cloud architectures.

BenQ Zowie announces new RL2455S e-sports monitor

ZOWIE, BenQ's eSports brand, has announced the launch of new e-sports monitor RL2455S with 1ms response time. RL2455S e-sports monitor is the successor to the RL2455 e-sports monitor. The successor comes equipped with Exclusive Color Vibrance Technology adjustable feature, which adds flexibility to easily tune preferred colour tone and to distinct small targets from the background, making the trace easy and precise. This feature sets ZOWIE RL2455S apart from its predecessors.

Rajeev Singh, Managing Director, BenQ India, stated, “ZOWIE RL2455S e-sports monitor lays the foundation for a new and improved gaming experience. Catering to the evolving needs of consumers, BenQ ZOWIE has taken a step further to offer more features with the launch of ZOWIE RL2455S our upgraded e-sports monitor. With a clear product focus and a series of procedures in place to assist stronger performance, BenQ is placed well for another impactful year in the gaming industry.”

Acer to sell and handle after-sales service for AOPEN monitor brand

AOPEN brand has brought a portfolio of affordable curved monitors from entry level to gaming series through Acer, who has been entrusted to market, sell, and handle the after-sales service of AOPEN monitors.

As an Acer subsidiary, AOPEN can leverage the Acer Group’s global footprint to create greater synergy and efficiency in operations.

AOPEN is known for its expertise in highquality monitors and this move with Acer brings deep knowledge of the Indian market with a vast network of partners and service centers to leverage on. Customers will be spoiled for choice with high-quality offerings serving a wide use case right from entry level to curved screen gaming monitors.

Commenting on the launch, Chandrahas Panigrahi, CMO & Consumer Business Head, Acer India, said, “We are delighted to bring AOPEN Gaming Monitors to India. With this, Acer hopes to open up the monitor market in India with more specialized models right from entry level to curved screen gaming monitor all at a very tantalizing price point.”

Coming Soon

8th ED I T I O N

BRAND BOOK: A REFERENCE BOOK FOR THE TECHNOLOGY INVESTMENT DECISION MAKERS IN THE COUNTRY A brand speaks about an overall experience of a customer that distinguishes an organization or product from its rivals in the eyes of the customer. Your brand is the symbol of your business.

Every brand makes a promise. But in a marketplace in which consumer confidence is low and budgetary vigilance is high, it's not just making a promise that separates one brand from another, but having a defining purpose.

Additionally, technology and society are evolving faster than businesses can naturally adapt. This sets the stage for a new era of leadership, which is converging the three sectors – Marketing, Technology, Management (MARTECH). They are however now converging to create consistent, unified customer experiences. The average percentage of a CMO's budget allocated for MARTECH has jumped from 22% to 29% in 2018.

People at times make decisions based on their emotions.

Developing an emotional branding strategy helps form the very fabric of your corporate identity.

Find details in the 8th Edition - Top 25 Brands in Indian ICT Industry

Half of digital transformation initiatives have stalled, and this will force firms to pivot away from the large-scale strategies they were so fixated on in 2018. In result, Marketers need to find new ways of enriching their first-party data.

The 2019 issue will focus on the Brand Mapping Strategy of the corporates Corporate Office: Kalinga Digital Media Pvt. Ltd. VAR House: A-84A/3 Rose Apartment, Paryavaran complex, IGNOU Road, New Delhi - 110068, Tel: 011-41656383, 41655458 Fax: 46061809, Website: www.mybrandbook.co.in Bureau Offices: Mumbai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bhubaneswar www.varindia.com January 2019

19

VOICE-N-DATA

DIGISOL unveils wireless broadband router – DG-BR5411QAC

DIGISOL Systems has introduced the next-generation wireless router – DGBR5411QAC operating on both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz (Dual Band) along with a transmission speed of up to 1,200 Mbps.

Equipped with the next-generation WiFi standard IEEE802.11ac, the wireless router facilitates seamless surfing and sharing files such as HD video, movies, music and documents. The device uses intelligent antenna technology to transmit multiple streams of data which enables to receive wireless signals faster at home.

Suitable for Homes and Small Offices, the powerful bandwidth of the router provides range in large area, thus allowing more devices to connect to the network. The dual-band router features QoS (Quality of Service) prioritization technology that analyzes and separates multiple data streams based on sensitivity to delay, enabling multiple applications to stream smoothly across network.

The wireless router has Quick Install feature which quickly configures new wireless router to get up and running in minutes. Our Quick Install shows step-by-step installation process to configure Internet connection, wireless network settings and security.

Airtel, along with Ericsson, successfully concludes LAA trial in a live network

Bharti Airtel and Ericsson said that they have successfully conducted India’s first trial of Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) technology over a LIVE LTE network.

LAA is a key technology as operators evolve their networks to achieve Gigabit LTE by opening up previously untapped resources of unlicensed spectrum delivering speeds once thought only possible over fiber.

Randeep Sekhon, CTO, Bharti Airtel, states, “Airtel has always led the introduction of cutting-edge network technologies to serve its customers.

We are pleased to partner Ericsson to conduct India’s first LAA trial, which is also a big step towards 5G and Gigabit networks. LAA is an important technology evolution that can truly unlock the power of 4G LTE networks by leveraging unutilized unlicensed spectrum.”

During the trial, data download speeds of over 500 Mbps were recorded on smartphones in an indoor environment. In outdoor environment, peak download speed of more than 400 Mbps was achieved with coverage of about 180 metres from the base station. The trial was conducted in DelhiNCR.

Nokia to deploy FTTH network across Nepal with Vianet

Nokia and Vianet, a leading Internet Service Provider in Nepal, will deploy a Fiber-To-The-Home (FTTH) network across Nepal to help connect more than 200,000 customers with ultra-broadband access by 2019. The multi-year project includes deploying over 100,000 of Nokia’s GPON Optical Network Terminals (ONT).

Nokia’s GPON fiber solution will help Vianet to build up to 2.5 Gbps (Gigabits per second) capable network per subscriber. The new ultra-fast network will enable Vianet subscribers to seamlessly transition towards the highly demanding Internet applications such as Ultra-High Definition (4k) video content, Internet TV, live streaming, online gaming, as well as support the growing number of devices that are becoming Internet capable. Using Nokia's leading fiber platform, Vianet will be able to evolve and scale its network in line with residential demands in a cost-efficient way.

Nokia's fiber solution will also significantly increase current broadband speeds in Nepal Once deployed, the new FTTH network will provide existing Vianet subscribers with the option to upgrade their current bandwidth up to 100Mbps and experience ultra-broadband and HD IPTV services.

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HCL Technologies partners with Cloudify over 5G network slicing to telecoms providers

HCL Technologies (HCL) has announced it has tied up with Cloudify to bring Network Function Virtualization (NFV) orchestrated network slicing to telecoms providers. HCL’s Engineering and R&D Services (ERS) team is using Cloudify’s platform and capabilities for a new solution that enables telecoms to create dedicated, reliable Software-Defined Network (SDN) connections. This will allow telecoms providers to offer differentiated services tailored to specific customers and use-cases, so they can maximize the value of their investments in 5G technology and unlock new revenue streams through transforming their existing 4G networks.

The ability for telecoms providers to create dynamically-provisioned, dedicated virtual networks with functionality and performance tailored for real-world scenarios will benefit many industries; including manufacturing, automotive, utilities, healthcare, multimedia, public safety, public transport and financial services. These capabilities will be particularly important for the emerging use-cases around the Internet of Things (IoT), where flexible network services and performance will be essential to supporting concepts such as connected cars, smart cities and predictive maintenance in manufacturing.

TAIPA declares Meghalaya to have aligned with Digital India vision

Tower and Infrastructure Providers’ Association (TAIPA) has highlighted that, after Assam, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya state has become the fourth state in the North- East region to align with the Hon’ble Prime Minister’s vision of Digital India by notifying a state policy for fast-tracking the rollout of telecom infrastructure which will eventually develop a robust telecom infrastructure extending ubiquitous network connectivity across the state.

The much-awaited state Right of Way rules have been notified by Meghalaya Government on 21st December, 2018 that are aligned with the Right of Way rules, 2016 notified by the Central Government and will be effective from 15th January, 2019. The Right of Way rules, 2016 offers salient features such as no restriction on the location of telecom towers, single window clearance mechanism, defined time-period for approvals, deemed approvals, the appointment of Nodal officers, nominal administrative fees and deemed approval, etc extensively supporting the Digital India mission by simplifying and expediting the telecom infrastructure rollout.

Sterlite Tech establishes Products Experience Lab in Silvassa

Sterlite Tech has set up a Specialty Products Experience Lab (SPEL) in Silvassa, India to focus on end-to-end connectivity architecture solutions for global telcos, ISPs, cloud companies and data centres.

The new SPEL lab is the latest addition to Sterlite Tech’s other innovation and research centres. The company is home to India’s only Centre of Excellence for photonics and glass science research, Centre for Smarter Networks for innovation on future network applications such as Software Defined Networks (SDN) and converged networks, and two software delivery centres. The new lab in Silvassa adds to Sterlite Tech’s high-precision communications expertise for the last mile. Armed to demonstrate the physical layer of the connectivity architecture end-to-end, SPEL enables real-life experience of network design inventions for small cells, Internet of Things (IoT), CCTV surveillance and related applications.

At SPEL, Sterlite Tech will perform multiple critical tests to confirm cable quality and performance compliance, giving customers consistently reliable network experience in actual field conditions.

FACE TO FACE

India Market holds immense importance for SUSE

Open source started picking up in India after the government’s announcement of its adoption.

It gave a big boost to the open source companies.

Prior to that India was lagging behind when compared to other countries in terms of its adoption but the government’s move helped to boost the open source market.

“In recent future, the government in India announced that they are adopting open source which helped a lot. Before that, India was little behind in adoption of open source compared to other countries. But since the government declared and has also taken a leadership role in conducting pilots helped a lot in boosting the adoption,” views Ronald De Jong, President Sales, SUSE. Reacting on the same, Rajarshi Bhattacharya, Country Head, SUSE elaborates, “If you look at Government of India’s initiative like Digital India, it has got two pillars - one is establishing the infrastructure and that pillar is totally developed around open source. So right from deploying Smart City to Access Control Systems and UIDAI, everything is developed on open source.

The second pillar is Service Delivery to Citizens; in the last seven years all the mission mode projects have been developed on open source. So the prioritization of open source is there and the government today is also fairly matured enough to understand that they require enterprise grade open source in order to maintain stability, sustainability, and security. So these pillars which revolve around open source is actually nibbling us to grow very fast.”

India as a market India as a market holds high importance for SUSE for various factors. The market is flooded with opportunities as the country has a huge young population which further indicates rapid adoption of new technologies. Moreover, India is a big opportunity for SAP and SUSE has good products around it which will help the latter to grow in the market.

“India is a very important country for SUSE because it has a huge young population. Its IT educational system is one of the best in the world. So there are a lot of IT experts available in India which also means that the adoption of new technologies is much faster here. We create new offerings with the System Integrators (SI) in the market, while also making sure that we are in that stack, which will help us to be important and gain market share in the rest of the world.

So that is why it is important to be in India. We want to grow fast in Asia as this is one of the fast growing areas. We have very good products around SAP and India is a very big country for

RAJARSHI BHATTACHARYA

RONALD DE JONG

With adoption of open source in the government sector, SUSE has witnessed a huge growth in the industry. India as a market is a priority for SUSE as it holds opportunity for the company. In a chat with VARINDIA, Ronald De Jong, President - Sales, SUSE and Rajarshi Bhattacharya, Country Head, SUSE reveals its go to market strategy, channel strategy etc.

SAP,” explains Ronald.

Go to Market Strategy From SUSE’s go to market perspective India is very important. To better focus on the market, the company has two teams, one which works with the SIs and the other that concentrates on the local market.

“India is a very important market from SUSE’s go to market strategy perspective. Since I am responsible for Sales worldwide, I was required to look at all the go to market models we have and when we did an exercise, we found out that India is actually very important. In India we have two teams - one is the team of Partner Executives (PE) that looks after the big System Integrators (SI). In some countries we have dedicated PEs for the SIs and in some countries we have one PE managing two or three SIs. But around the world we have a big ecosystem of Partner Executives. They are rolling out the solutions that are created in India.

The other team looks after the local market because it’s little different. Both the teams are working together but they have their own leadership strategies and go to market people,” elaborates Ronald.

Channel Strategy The company is focusing on few aspects, which include empowerment of SIs so that while implementing any solution the SI can easily bundle SUSE technology along with it.

“We were focusing on a couple of key areas. SAP is very important for our business

when we look at how customers are consuming SAP solutions in the market. As its solution implementation gets more complex, customers want to leverage SIs to implement these solutions. So from a strategy perspective we want to make it easy for our SIs to be able to include our technology in those offerings that they give to customers,” mentions Rajarshi.

Further adding to it he says, “The other areas that we are focusing with our SI Partners are Software Defined Infrastructure and also Application Delivery.

In India, there are actually three levels in the channel market. There are large SIs whom we call the Global System Integrators (GSIs), they work on two sectors – Banking Financial Services Industry and Government. So that is where we partner with our GSI team members and we work very closely to address those customers.

Then we have the second type of partners like L&T, Inspira Enterprise etc which is handled by a named partner team. We also have Global Partners like HPE, IBM etc. who work across industry verticals like Manufacturing, BFSI, Government etc. So we work very closely with them.

Lastly, comes the Tier two or three city partners who are very state or city specific.

They are more like opportunity specific, target alignment partners that we have. Our partner strategy revolves around the technical skill set. So it’s not primarily based on revenue but based on the skills set in terms of SUSE products. We are getting in more partners who are reaching higher levels of certification and we are hopeful to add few more to that.”

www.varindia.com January 2019

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CHANNEL BUZZ

Compuage and Commscope delight partners in Maldives Commscope Partners that have contributed extensively towards its growth in AMJ (April, May, June) quarter found their efforts recognized with an incentive trip to Maldives. The scheme saw an active participation from partners across the country and finally over 35 partners qualified for the same.

Cloudera discusses New Data Age at the Cloudera Sessions 2018

Cloudera has held their annual flagship event, Cloudera Sessions 2018 in Mumbai with participation of big data experts, customers and partner organizations from home and abroad.

Cloudera empowers people and organizations to transform complex data into clear and actionable insights. At this year’s conference, the theme was focused on “Think Big. Start Smart. Iterate Often.”. Cloudera’s customers such as Yes Bank, Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), DCB Bank, and Axis Bank along with partners like Microsoft, Cisco, Qlik, SUSE and Paladion participated in the event to share best practices and advice on how to embark on a data-driven journey and derive actionable insights from data.

Cloudera’s newly-appointed Country Manager for India Vinod Ganesan delivered his inaugural welcome address at the event and said, “We are delighted to see many industry leaders, customers and partners of Cloudera join us in our annual conference to share their experiences and learnings on their data-driven journey. Many enterprises are beginning to realize the importance of digital transformation and the benefits that can be derived through the application of machine learning and artificial intelligence in their businesses. We look forward to being a partner of choice for enterprises in India as they start to embark on their data-driven digital transformation journey.”

The Cloudera Annual Sessions are a part of the global roadshow series aimed at helping organizations explore the role of machine learning and advanced analytics in driving customer insights, connecting products and services (IoT), and protecting businesses through real-life customer stories and use cases.

NetRack offers its training program at its Regional SI Partner Meet

NetRack has conducted an exclusive SI partner meet at Clarks Exotica Convention Resorts, Bengaluru. The partner meet was followed up with the walk-through of NetRack's ultra-modern manufacturing plant located in Magadi Road, Bengaluru.

NetRack's key partners spread across government BFSI, IT/ITeS, Hospitals and Hospitalities made their presence at the meet. The main agenda of the gathering was to exchange thoughts, get ideas on addressing challenges and exploring trending opportunities in the market. NetRack experts enriched the partners with core knowledge on technology products and shared company's business roadmap for the coming years. The meet helped NetRack to create a healthy and long-term relationship with their partners.

Partners leveraged the opportunity and interacted directly with Ravi Raj, Brand Head, Director, Sales & Support, NetRack. Interacting with the partners, Ravi Raj said, "SI partners are very crucial for our business.

They play a key role in amplifying our product reach and also enable us in building our brand image across various verticals. Indeed! This is a great opportunity created to meet up people who drive us to journey of success."

Speaking on the partner training program offered by NetRack, Ravi said, "We sketch down our training programs effectively to bring our partners along our growth journey. We look forward to work as team and achieve more milestones in the coming future."

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The partners made ground in Maldives on 22nd November, 2018 where they spent four days enjoying the beauty and participated in activities like snorkelling, wind surfing, jet skiing and special mention of sunset cruise where they witnessed dolphins. The partners returned to India on the 25th after concluding a much-needed vacation.

Commscope continues to push the envelope in the field of networking and has been conducting various Incentive trips not only to reaffirm itself in the market as a leader but also reaffirm the faith of the partners globally.

Atul H. Mehta, Chairman & Managing Director, Compuage Infocom Limited said, “We are very pleased to see partner’s commitment and their reciprocation of the same towards our business. I take this opportunity to thank all our partners for the continued support for Commscope business.”

TechnoBind hosts its Partner Meet in Chennai

TechnoBind has conducted a partners’ meet in Chennai. Attended by over 50+ channel partners, the event was aimed to assist partners gain insights about how they can help their customers manage their data over its lifecycle. With channel engagement at the core, the event mainly offered a platform to share business pain points associated with data storage, protection, security and management.

It is said that the amount of data in the world doubles every two years,

and by 2020, the digital universe will reach 44 zettabytes, or 4 trillion gigabytes in data. According to Gartner Inc., more and more Indian organizations are looking to integrate and manage unstructured data, and some are also experimenting with data science on real-time streaming data.

As a result, data management software market revenue in India is on pace to total US$950 million in 2018, a 13.2-per cent increase year over year.

TechnoBind is focused on identifying and partnering with vendors/ solution providers who focuses on plotting the future in line with the latest disruptive technologies based on their well-defined "use-case" based approach, where it is all about identifying a business pain-point of a customer and helping position the right technology, solution or service at the right time.

Movers & Shakers

NSE ropes in Shiv Kumar Bhasin as Chief Technology and Operations Officer

National Stock Exchange (NSE) has roped in Shiv Kumar Bhasin for the position of Chief Technology and Operations Officer. Bhasin will report to Vikram Limaye, Managing Director & CEO of NSE. Prior to this, he was associated with State Bank of India (SBI) as Global CTO. During his stint at SBI, he was instrumental in bringing about a huge digital transformation by leveraging technologies like Blockchain, Internet of Things (IoT), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Tech Mahindra’s Manoj Chugh to move to Mahindra Group

After six eventful and fulfilling years at Tech Mahindra, Manoj Chugh will be moving to the Mahindra Group (Mahindra Mahindra) as President, Group Public Affairs and Member Group Executive Board effective January 1, 2019.

Chugh joined Tech Mahindra in 2013 and was responsible for driving almost half of the company’s $5-billion revenue. Prior to this, he was with EMC and looked after global accounts there.

Chugh takes over this new role from S. Ramkrishna who has retired from the company, M&M said in a statement.

R&M India names Murugesan. R as S Director, Sales (India & SAARC)

R&M has announced the appointment of Murugesan. R as Senior Director, Sales – Private Networks (India & SAARC), effective from January 9, 2019. Murugesan will be based out from Bangalore.

Industry veteran Murugesan comes with an overall experience of more than 30 years with a strong track record in sales and marketing operations. Prior to joining R&M, he has held senior positions with many well-known OEM companies. In his new role at R&M India, Murugesan will be responsible for the overall private network sales operations of the company for India region and SAARC.

Flipkart assigns Amar Nagaram as the CEO of Myntra & Jabong

Earlier, after the report of Ananth Narayanan quitting from Myntra to head Hotstar started resurfacing, Flipkart named Amar Nagaram as the CEO of the newly merged entity of Myntra and Jabong.

Nagaram, who recently moved from Flipkart to Myntra as the chief technology and product officer (CTPO), will be reporting to Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy.

Prior to CTPO role, Nagaram was the Vice President at the consumer shopping experience for Flipkart since January 2016.

Nilanjan Roy is the new CFO of Infosys

Infosys has announced that it has appointed Nilanjan Roy as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the company, effective March 1, 2019.

Nilanjan Roy joins Infosys from Bharti Airtel where he holds the position of Global Chief Financial Officer. Nilanjan has spent the last 13 years with Bharti Airtel, prior to which he worked for 15 years with Unilever across their global operations. He is a Bachelor of Commerce (Hons.) from the University of Delhi and is a Chartered Accountant.

Jayesh Sanghrajka will resume his responsibilities as Deputy CFO, effective March 1, 2019.

Kaspersky Lab appoints new GM for Japan

Global cybersecurity company, Kaspersky Lab has announced the appointment of Tsuyoshi Fujioka as the new General Manager of Kaspersky Lab Japan, effective January 1, 2019.

With over three decades of experience in the IT industry, Fujioka will spearhead the continued strategic growth of Kaspersky Lab in Japan. He will be responsible for growing the company's market share in both the B2B and B2C segments.

Fujioka is expected to extend the market footprint of Kaspersky Lab's newest technologies, including the company's solution for critical infrastructure. He will also take charge of strengthening relationships with key channel partners in the country.

Swati Shetty steps down from Netflix

Netflix has confirmed that Swati Shetty has resigned from her role as the Director of International Original and Acquisitions at Netflix India.

Shetty has been with the company since the start of its India operations. In her two-year stint, Shetty has been instrumental in acquiring popular films such as Love Per Square Foot’, ‘Lust Stories’ and ‘RajmaChawal.’

Shetty has worked with Ekta Kapoor’s Balaji Telefilms as the President. She has also worked with The Walt Disney Studios as Associate Director at the Disney ABC Television Group and as manager at Star India.

Marie Myers joins UiPath as its CFO

UiPath has announced the appointment of Marie Myers as its Chief Financial Officer (CFO). As CFO, Myers will report directly to UiPath’s CEO & Co-Founder Daniel Dines and will provide financial leadership to support the company’s global mission to accelerate the adoption of automation across public and private sectors and businesses of all sizes.

Myers joins UiPath from HP, where she served as the Global Controller and Executive Officer of HP. Leading a team of 2,200, she was responsible for the financial statements in all of the countries where HP operates and HP’s Financial Operations globally. She has spent the majority of her career at HP and Compaq.

www.varindia.com January 2019

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VAR CORPORATE

Barracuda gives an edge to Partners with latest technologies to secure customer business MURALI URS

Country Manager – India Barracuda Networks

Pioneer of advanced technology, Barracuda Networks was launched to give email-protection to businesses. The company is known for disrupting the security market with innovative solutions. It aims to protect customers, data and applications from ever evolving threats with the most comprehensive IT security platform backed by customer support.

Talking about the evolving landscape of the security industry, Murali Urs, Country Manager – India, Barracuda Networks highlights, “Security is an evolving space. Barracuda is a pioneer of a lot of new cutting-edge technologies. One of the biggest things that we are doing is spear phishing which is a big threat for customers. Worldwide it is one of the biggest sources for the money earning for adversaries. But a lot of customers do not talk about it because spear phishing is something that people would like to hide it. In Barracuda we have solutions which help people to find out spear phishing. Apart from that our solutions are cloud ready. So we arm the partners and help customers to address the existing situation and with our ever evolving AI and Machine Learning Technologies that we have adopted, we are able to churn on more technologies to help customers address the upcoming challenges.”

Partners always look upto new ways to address customers and security is the best way as cyber security is the most dynamic industry presently. The company with its array of solutions arm its Partners to address their customer demand and equip them with latest technologies.

“Partners are looking at new avenues to address customers, so security is a very good avenue for them to get into it and a never ending challenge. Lots of technologies are available and Barracuda provides huge opportunity for partners to address the customers not only from optimizing the infrastructure but as the industry evolves towards the Cloud, Barracuda provides fantastic platform for partners to work with us because our solutions are cloud ready and we are able to help them work with their customers to give solutions to protect

infrastructure on cloud as well. So the partners will play a huge role but they have to evolve to address the cloud infrastructure which is going to come up very quickly,” feels Murali.

Further talking about its commitment towards partners, Murali reveals, “Barracuda is a 100% channel driven company, we do not sell to customers directly. We always work with partners. We recruit, train, enable and arm them with their technology requirement to help them to sell to customers and address customer requirements. Some of the partners sell specific products and some sell across the portfolio. But, we help every partner to get trained on all the technologies they want to work with us. Moreover, our portal is very accessible to partners. Over a period of time they do not need to depend on us as all the information is available on portal.”

PARTNERS SPEAK TANAJ JYOTISHI National Product Manager – Security, Storage & Adobe, Comparex India “From association perspective, we are a premier partner of Barracuda Networks. Our main focus is cyber security and how Comparex in association with Barracuda can help customers to secure customer business not only at data center but also at the user level.

Comparex is in this business for last 32 years and our major focus verticals are IT/ITES, Manufacturing and BPO. With virtue of this alliance we are talking to CXOs and we are really geared up to take on this alliance to next level. Our major focus is ITES and Manufacturing.

Barracuda is one of the technology companies which help us from bringing technology to end customers, which helps them to address a lot of security concerns. If you look at today’s scenario the top CIOs always think how to secure the business. From the association perspective, we are getting good response and edge over the customers by taking technology which helps organization to secure their business. As a partner, we believe in bottom driven organization and we take best of the solutions to the customers. As an organization we are making benefits and mutual success for both Barracuda and Comparex.”

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ARPIT TRIVEDI National Lead – IT Security, Software One “Our association with Barracuda has been almost one and a half years in India. The duration of association as of now is pretty descent and smooth. From a relationship perspective it has been good. Recently a global tie up is happening between Barracuda and SoftwareOne to sell some of the cloud solutions which is in its final stage and will come out soon, where we will bundle Barracuda products along with Microsoft solutions and that would be a good cater for us going forward because everyone is moving towards Cloud solution these days.

In India the top verticals would be IT/ITES which is a key area for any SI. Though we mainly focus on bigger customers as they contribute 80% to the business but we also focus on regionalization because we feel that entirely you cannot depend on a vertical. So you have to go for regionalization like Chennai as it’s a hub of manufacturing, Mumbai – a BFSI hub. So that is how we have done our regionalization and IT/ ITES is our key focus.

We were known as a Microsoft player globally, so our main focus was to diversify our business into different verticals so that the business does not get stagnant and no single point of failure. As a result we have identified three to four publishers and Barracuda is one of our priorities, primarily because of the solutions and industry they cater. These were the primary reason to select Barracuda and it is helping us to create delta revenue for the company.”

SUDHIR SHARMA CEO, Versatile Infosecurity “The association with Barracuda is quite long and we are doing almost all series including the Email, Web and Gateway Security. We started in around 2009-10 and it is a good association.

Versatile Infosecurity is a security company primarily. We have all products like Email, Web and Gateway security. In the past, we have done Archiving and Backup solutions as well. For us the security vertical is most fast growing market.

As a business person, the margins and leads are really safe, wherever we are working they are not allowing other person to work directly or indirectly. Barracuda’s knowledge sharing is very good and support is prominent. So it’s good product with best support and service.”

FACE TO FACE

"We want to be a leader in open source based hyper-converged solutions" Subbaram Gowra, Managing Director –GBB shares with VARINDIA more his company, its core competencies and what he thinks are the opportunities in the industry today are for a SI company like his -

Can you share about the services portfolio GBB offers?

GBB offers a product portfolio that includes Backup Automation, Hyper Convergence, Networking, Information & Network Security, Open Source Solutions and High Performance Computing.

What are the core competencies of your R&D Team, working for various important organisations in the country?

We work very closely with our customers to understand the pain areas about their IT Infrastructure and thereby build a solid pipeline of issues on a regular basis which would be shared with our distinguished team of engineers at our R&D. The R&D team would then conduct various Proof of concepts/experiments with few key customers to figure out cost effective & optimized solutions for those problems raised.

Apart from these, our R&D team also focuses on developing high potential practices like Network Virtualization , Network Monitoring , Open Source based Hyper Convergence solutions etc. to name a few.

When we talk about various

opportunities into System Integration and solution support in the country, how has GBB expended its arm in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana?

Cloud doesn’t just include license selling but it involves a whole lot of services around migration andoptimization.We see a great potential in this space and hence are working towards it. In terms of reach, we are right now present across Hyderabad & Vizag, and might expand to other areas like Vijayawada and Tirupati.

Which are the key vendors you are associated with when we talk about specialised solutions support?

We are working with key vendors like VMware, Dell EMC, IBM, Trend Micro, Sophos and Cisco.

Lastly, what is the roadmap of GBB for the next one year?

We want to be a leader in open source based hyper-converged solutions and also an end-toend professional services Cloud Consultant.

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EVENTS

SIITF Southern India Information Technology Fair’18

VARINDIA Tech Summit sparks discussions on how Emerging Technologies bring newer opportunities Eminent leaders from across leading organizations, CIOs and VARs opined the need of addressing compliances and challenges in AI, IoT and Automation VARINDIA has recently organised its Tech Summit at Hotel Le Meridian, Bengaluru, where the CIO community and tech leaders from technology, Security and AI industry gathered to understand on how emerging technologies are creating newer markets. The Tech Summit also witnessed the next generation datacenter, AI, Storage and security products and solutions, while the leadership from ITI, IT Department of Karnataka, NVIDIA, Western Digital, Sophos, ESDS Datacenter and Quardgen Wireless spoke on various technology innovations. The event featured panelists from leading organizations, such as AEGIS, Gokaldas, Dailyhunt, e-Gov Karnataka, Cytechcare Hospital and iRam Technologies.

The summit was themed - ‘Emerging Technologies to Create Newer Markets’. The discussions focused on the impact of data policy frameworks, challenges and opportunities emerging from AI and ML, Autonomous Vehicles, Data Security, security for IoT, and how the convergence of CIO and CMO partnerships are evolving to develop a collaborative relationship.

Some of India’s most valued dignitaries including Vishal Dhupar, Managing Director, South Asia- NVIDIA; M. Arun Kumar, EDR –

R&D, ITI Ltd.; Sridhar Saranathan - CIO and Head of e-Gov-Karnataka; Byju Pillai, President & CEO - Inflow Technologies; Sunil Sharma, MD (Sales) – Sophos; Harsha N, Enterprise Business Development Manager - Western Digital and Murugan E, Regional DirectorESDS Datacenters in addition to 40 CIOs and 60 VARs (System Integrators and Solution partners) attended the discussions and debated on various technology innovations and challenges that have been exponentially increasing, particularly with Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning.

In his inauguration speech, Dr. Deepak Kumar Sahu, President & CEO, VARINDIA said, “India has huge technological talent and it is true that emerging and disruptive Technologies are Creating Newer Markets. For this I think both CIO and CMO alignment drives business growth, The C-suite collaborations is becoming one of the most important when it comes to delivering the kind of digital experiences that customers demand.”

Deepak further emphasized on how “Disruption Is About Experiences”. They just happen to be enabled by technology. It is like Businesses that find a way to better solve

individual and collective challenges and use tech layers to implement those solutions.

“It’s impossible to predict exactly which trends will become the most disruptive in 2019. That being said, there are a number of developments that have and will continue to shape business strategies. From automation to sustainability, organizations are adapting to a whole new wave of consumer preferences.”

He also said that Chinese and American companies who are facing strong headwinds in each other’s markets and winning in a large country like India can be a game changer for both sides, “especially if you believe data is the new oil”. He also spoke about VARINDIA’s identification of Top 10 Emerging/disruption technologies which are expected to disrupt the industry further.

Kicking off the discussions, Vishal Dhupar, M.D, South Asia- NVIDIA said, “The opportunities in the mobile cloud era is much bigger than the PC era, capabilities in artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning (DL). AI application running on a device such as an autonomous vehicle is performing real-time

ARUN KUMAR EDR – R&D, ITI Ltd “Emerging technologies are going to create new markets in coming times. ITI over the years has been able to adopt to the emerging technologies, sustained ourselves and develop into what we are today. We are the first public sector in the country, started in 1945 and just completed 70 years of our foundation. We were the leaders in telecommunication, having established the entire network that fuel the Indian economy, from 1950 till 1992 when liberalization took place. We developed our new products by looking into the requirements of the market – the switches, telecommunication systems, transmission systems and the terminal products. We were able to develop, manufacture and put these products into the Indian market. And this is how we saw sustained growth in the industry despite several hiccups.”

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RIGHT TO LEFT: Harsha N, Enterprise Business Development Manager - Western Digital, Murugan E, Regional Director- ESDS Datacenters, Ajay Bakshi, Chief Digital Officer & Svp-Aegis Bpo & Kpo, Uday Bhaskar Rao, M.D.- I Ram Technologies, Vishal Dhupar, Managing Director, South Asia- NVIDIA, Sridhar Saranathan - CIO and Head of e-Gov-Karnataka, Raman Pillai, G.M, Ather Energy , M. ARUN KUMAR, EDR – R&D, ITI Limited, Mr. Subbarao Hegde, CIO Index USA/Director, Apon India, Sunil Sharma, M.D.(Sales)Sophos, SENTHIL N, Director IT & CIO-SUN Innovation Systems Pvt. Ltd, and Dr. Deepak Kumar Sahu, President & CEO - Kalinga Digital Media collision avoidance. Power efficiency is equally important since these vehicles may have to go days, weeks or months without recharging.

Lastly, the future of next generation product development would revolve around Artificial intelligence and Machine learning.”

Adding to the discussion on emerging technologies, Arun Kumar, EDR – R&D, ITI Ltd said, “ITI Limited, is the country’s first telecommunications PSU post-independence and is a premier telecom manufacturing company in the country. ITI has bagged many important projects including the orders in pipeline. ITI hopes to reach an order book of INR 22,000 crore in the coming 2 to 3 years.”

Under the leadership of K Alagesan, ITI has also entered into an agreement with Telecommunication Engineering Center

(TEC) for establishment of state-of-the-art telecom testing labs at its Bengaluru plant to facilitate mandatory testing of imported and indigenous telecom equipment in India. ITI has also partnered with 50 start-ups and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) covering the manufacturing of a wide range of ICT and IoTbased solutions.

is Quantum technology and Quantum computing. Not only India and but across the world, Bengaluru is named as the leader in this Quantum Technology and this is going to be the future”.

Arun Kumar also spoke about project leading capabilities by ITI, R&D in ITI for various projects and upcoming networks for Army and also about its first Indigenous crypto system for Indian Army for securing the communication network of Indian Defence forces. AI and IoT are creating newer revolution in the technology era.

Speaking on the theme of the event, three corporate houses presented their perspective.

The first presenter was Harsha N, Enterprise Business Development Manager from Western Digital, who spoke on how digital transformation is happening through Data and at the same time how it is creating environments for data to thrive and creating a data driven economy. He also spoke about how Western Digital has become the global leader in storage technology with $19.1 billion dollar.

He further added, “We are talking about IoT but I would say the future of computing

Murugan E, Regional Director- ESDS Datacenter spoke on how newer technologies

VISHAL DHUPAR MD, South Asia- NVIDIA “There are nothing that we as humans cannot understand what is happening in technology.

That challenge that we face is we get caught up with it in a surprise. If you look at technology, it moves with certain patterns and continues to create those patterns over a period of time. If you pay attention to those, you would know exactly where it is going. It’s almost like a drop that falls on a mountain and the water moves. Maybe what you cannot figure out is the path that that it is going to take. But we all know it is going to gravitate towards a downward slope. And it is for this reason that we knew telephones had to happen.”

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EVENTS are bringing newer opportunities in the age of cloud. Sunil Sharma, MD (Sales), Sophos spoke about the security landscape and its growing importance in the digital era and how these newer threats are impacting the industry. He also spoke about how Sophos is bringing newer opportunities for securing enterprises.

The event witnessed the participation of CIOs from various industries. The attendees included Subbarao Hegde, CIO Index USA/ Director, Apon India; Krishna M S, HeadIT, Toradex Systems India Pvt. Ltd; Senthil N, Director IT & CIO, Sun Innovation Systems Pvt. Ltd.; J.M. Priyadarshan, Vice President, Neo Values Solutions; Raghunath Thiyagarajan, Director - Infrastructure Service & Cloud Practice; Nandkishore Dhomne, VP-IT & CIO- Manipal Health Enterprises; KRC Murthy, VP, Head of RTB-IT- Kotak Mahindra Bank; Arvind Kumar, Director-IT- Elior India Catering LLP; Ajay Bakshi, Chief Digital Officer & SVP-Aegis BPO & KPO; Jai Thomas, Head IT Infra & Operations - Dailyhunt (Versé Innovation Pvt ltd); Himanshu Rastogi, CIO, Medi Assist; Prashant Kumar, Head-

IT- Alstom India; Raman Pillai, G.M, Ather Energy; Chirag Boonlia, VP-IT, Virtuous Retail Services Pvt. Ltd; Paul Raj M, GM & IT Head-Puravankara limited; Harish H S, Principal Consultant-Hanvik Infosec; Ramesh V, Technical Head, IT Department Karnataka State Financial Corporation; Ganesh Ramachandra, CIO, UST Software India Pvt. Ltd.; Ramesh Subramaniam, Director-Technology, DXC Technology; N. Balasubramanian, General Manager & Head of IT, Cloudnine Group of Hospitals; Manish Shah, GM-IT, Gokaldas Exports; Hariharan Subramani, VP-IT, Shriram Properties Ltd.; Vasudevan R, CIO, Aster CMI Hospital; Girish Kulkarni, CIO Cytech Care Hospital, Sandeep Panda, CEOInstaSafe and Uday Bhaskhar Rao, MD iRam Technologies.

The panel discussion session was based on various topics related to Data Policy frameworks in India. AI and ML are changing the way that gets things done all over the world and expect a multi-modal transport platform to emerge. Various companies are building multi-modal platforms, furthering the cause of transportation to a whole new

level.

The installation of smart sensors and the application of data analytics will deliver further steps towards the factory of the future. The wider use of automated processes powered by AI, advanced robotics, and IoT connectivity will contribute to realizing the ambitions of Industry 4.0., otherwise known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The Q&A session witnessed the discussions on how infotainment is on the brink of major evolution, with the next global megatrend being seamless connectivity between smartphones and automobiles.

VARINDIA’s Annual Tech Summit is a comprehensive platform dedicated to sharing knowledge and best practices and initiating dialogues on innovation and disruptive technologies, through sessions like Tech Talk and Panel discussion sessions.

In its essence, Tech Summit aims to promote the spirit of innovation and empower VARs and partners to connect and learn from industry veterans.

HARSHA N Enterprise Business Development Manager from Western Digital “If we look at the world today, from the moment we get up till we sleep, we create data. But these data are all unstructured and we do not know where they go. Today’s Technologies like AI, ML, IoT create tons and terabytes of data. There is nobody in the industry that understands data better than us because we are the backbone of where the data resides. Today we talk about data being the new oil – it could be personal data, company data, secured or unsecured. There is a lot of value for data – we use them as record, we use it for communication, efficiency and we also use it as a currency today. There are different kinds of data today right – Big Data which can scale, and Fast data which is performance oriented.”

MURUGAN E Regional Director- ESDS Datacenter “We see digitalization everywhere and this pose as an opportunity for us. When we talk about infrastructure, we refer to the cloud. Cloud is the major infrastructure for all enterprises, Government today which is going to be the future. 2020 is going to be the year of Cloud, and it is going to take a larger portion in the market. Customers are now adopting cloud technology on a larger level in order to get more efficiency, scalability, cost benefit, security and so on. 86% of the customers are going to adopt the cloud in coming times, which means there is a larger opportunity for a company like us. We play a major role in the industry and we are a 13 year old company in India. We have 1000+ customers in India.”

SUNIL SHARMA MD (Sales) – Sophos “Our Lab analyses 4 lakh new, unique malware every day. That is the kind of research that gets into it. At Sophos, innovation is the only game and we protect our customers by innovating every minute and every second. But let me tell you that Indian audience does not get scared by the threat landscape that is projected daily, because we are already been threatened by terrorists with guns in hands. Indian customers could not go beyond anti-viruses, firewalls because they could never think about deploying an anti-ransomware into their environment. According to one of our IT Security surveys, there happens to be 26 infected computers in a month, and 10 days per month is invested for cleaning up the infected computers.”

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PANEL DISCUSSION

"EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES TO CREATE NEWER MARKETS" Moderated by Dr. Deepak Kumar Sahu, CEO & President – VARINDIA The language of business is revenue, and that is completely tied to pipeline creation and progression. Data in the form of insights, should shed light on new marketing and business innovation opportunities and should inspire action.

Data for any organization is critical for analyzing, providing the results and for taking any business decisions.

The panel discussion tried to highlight of how important the Data Policy Framework is. Having a Data Policy Framework is important so that none of the critical data is leaked. It should also take into account of how much data should be there, the retention policy (as per Govt. policy, data should be retained for 5-10 years based on LEFT TO RIGHT: Uday Bhaskhar Rao, MD - iRam Technologies; Jai the industry) and so on. Every organization has Thomas, Head IT Infra & Operations - Dailyhunt (Versé Innovation Pvt ltd); a data framework policy but how to take it up is Manish Shah, GM-IT, Gokaldas Exports; Ajay Bakshi, Chief Digital Officer always an individual decision. Things like how we & SVP-Aegis BPO & KPO; Sridhar Saranathan - CIO and Head of e-Govshould utilise that data in a proper way or store Karnataka & Arvind Kumar, Director-IT- Elior India Catering LLP. it appropriately by taking a back-up are some of the things that should be taken care of. For this a clearly defined Data framework should be there for every organization.

Every registered company today gets worried about what happens to their citizen data. The policy should talk about how we can keep the sovereignty of the country while keeping a larger perspective of the customers. How do we regulate the use of this data is going to be the future. The implementation needs to be seen of how it will be helpful for the larger public. There is going to be a lot of learning for the auditors and people are going to implement those regulations.

The panelists who participated in the discussion were - Uday Bhaskhar Rao, MD - iRam Technologies; Jai Thomas, Head IT Infra & Operations - Dailyhunt (Versé Innovation Pvt ltd); Manish Shah, GM-IT, Gokaldas Exports; Ajay Bakshi, Chief Digital Officer & SVP-Aegis BPO & KPO; Sridhar Saranathan-CIO and Head of e-Gov-Karnataka, and Arvind Kumar, Director-IT- Elior India Catering LLP.

SPONSORS TO THE EVENT

SOLUTION KIOSKS

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LEAD STORY

Are we really aware of what Mobile Malware is?

India has been one of the largest mobile market in the world with a huge potential. It is estimated that more than a billion smartphones will be sold in next five years, taking the number of users to surpass 700 million by 2022. It is a device that has completely changed the way people used to access information and services.

It has become the primary device which contains an individual’s necessary information which can be exploited by the cyber criminals for their benefits.

“India has seen an incredible growth of mobile usage, it is estimated that more than a billion smartphones will be sold in India over the next five years, taking the number of users to surpass 700 million by 2022. Mobile phones have democratized how people access information and services. More and more people are using various applications on mobiles to access services, social media, and ecommerce sites, we see a rising trend in appcentricity. There are multiple apps being used by a single individual.

SANTANU GHOSE Director – India, Aruba a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company

"As the demands of enterprise mobility, BYOD, cloud and IoT grows, a unique design approach is essential for secured connectivity. User and Entity Behaviour Analytics (UEBA) which identifies and mitigates advanced internal threats is the need of the hour"

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Types of Malwares Spyware and Adware apps Phishing Apps Mobile Trojans and Viruses Mobile Bots It is said that a single person uses at least 40 applications a month. Most often to have a fuss-free experience while using an app, people often store their card details or use their existing accounts to log in. These come at a price – in terms of privacy and application security.

According to F5 Network’s 2018 Protecting Applications Report India is seen as the country least mindful about security when it comes to app usage, with only 49 percent prioritizing security over convenience.

This lack of caution provides attackers with a larger surface area to strike and this is further aggravated by the fact that multiple devices are interconnected and have confidential information saved. In fact, just last year, some 3.3 million malicious apps were detected in

MOHAN VELOO CTO F5 Networks

"Lack of proper password management and digital hygiene compound security issues for personally held devices such as mobiles that are connected to various interfaces and can call upon other apps to push, pull or process data"

Asia Pacific—the highest number globally. To reinforce this point, research from a threat intelligence lab revealed that in 86 percent of the 443 breaches detected over the last decade, attackers had targeted apps and/or used stolen credentials. Similarly, applications were also the initial targets of 53 percent of breaches,” upholds Mohan Veloo, CTO, F5 Networks.

Mobile Security landscape

We are currently living in a Digital era where mobility and IoT impacted the world in a big way. Both the technologies are making people’s life easy by encouraging innovation and driving productivity. By virtue of these technologies users can access corporate network and resources anytime and anywhere. But mobility also poses serious challenges for organizations by eradicating traditional security architectures and protective mechanism.

is the second-largest by downloads in the world.

App makers across the globe are vying to make their apps more Indian consumer friendly by adding more local customizations and features unique to the Indian consumer base. Security concerns rise with the upsurge of automation and digitization. Lack of proper password management and digital hygiene compound security issues for personally held devices such as mobiles that are connected to various interfaces and can call upon other apps to push, pull or process data.”

The device becomes a rich computing environment that includes potentially everything such as - our digital persona, our passwords, the keys to our home or rather, access to our entire digital life—including all the connected

“In today’s mobile and IoT era, as mobility drives innovation and productivity, it also creates serious challenges by breaking traditional security architectures and protective mechanisms. This growing influx of mobile and IoT devices coupled with greater reliance on cloud-based applications has a profound impact on the IT security of organizations specially in the form of surreptitious Malwares,” says Santanu Ghose, Director – India, Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company.

Indian is one of the largest app markets in terms of downloading. The app makers are gradually making the apps according to Indian consumer’s needs with local customizations and features. The F5 Network study also brings forth that 72% of Indians favour mobile over desktop. This also increases security concerns.

Elaborating on the same, Mohan Veloo of F5 Networks says, “India’s mobile app market

VENKAT KRISHNAPUR Vice-President of Engineering and MD, McAfee India

"Mobile malware authors are increasingly aiming for and generating revenues amounting to millions of dollars with their malicious campaigns. So, the pace at which malware has evolved on mobile devices is alarming"

Mobile Threat Report’, state that today, there are more than 4,000 mobile threat families and variants in the McAfee sample database. These sheer numbers tell us how the threat landscape is ever evolving and that, our mobile phones are becoming one of the foremost targets for

DEBASISH MUKHERJEE Country Manager India & SAARC SonicWall

"At SonicWall we propose to our customers a converged approach to reduce mobile security threats and supporting BYOD"

things in our home. Because of this, our mobile phones have become a very lucrative platform for cyber threats, providing hackers, a direct route into the users’ lives.

Venkat Krishnapur, Vice-President of Engineering and Managing Director, McAfee India highlights, “Findings from the ‘McAfee

VENUGOPAL N Director-Security Engineering Check Point Software Technologies India & SAARC

"Banking malware codes are specifically designed to steal financial information and transfer funds to their bank accounts"

cybercrimes.

Mobile malware authors are increasingly aiming for and generating revenues amounting to millions of dollars with their malicious campaigns. So, the pace at which malware has evolved on mobile devices is alarming."

Most Affected OS

As the use of mobiles is increasing with the passing days it is becoming easy for the cyber criminals to exploit the devices. It has been observed that Android operating system based devices have experienced mobile malware attacks more when compared to Apple iOS. Continuing on this Rajesh Maurya, Regional Vice President, India & SAARC, Fortinet says, “According to Fortinet Threat Landscape Report for Q3 2018 over one-quarter of organizations experienced a mobile malware attack, with the majority being on the Android operating system. In fact, of the threats

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LEAD STORY

SANJIT CHATTERJEE CEO REVE Antivirus

"There are several ways of launching threat in a mobile device starting from Trojan attack, Botnet to Malvertising.

Trojans usually pose as legitimate applications, which are downloaded in ignorance "

organizations faced from all attack vectors, 14% of total malware alerts were Android related.

By comparison, only .000311% of threats were targeted at Apple iOS. Mobile threats are a looming threat that must be addressed, especially as the mobile-shopping and Mobile payments are gaining popularity. These threats can become a gateway for corporate networks to be exploited. Criminals know mobile is an accessible target for infiltrating a network, and they are exploiting it.”

The cyber criminals use various innovative ways to launch a threat on the mobile device.

The popular ways are through mobile ads, keylogger, ransomware. Explaining the different types of malwares, Venkat Krishnapur of McAfee India says, “Malware can find its way onto your mobile device through mobile ads that accompany a significant amount of content and cybercriminals have turned their attention toward using them to spread malware to unsuspecting users. These “malvertisements”

On similar lines Debasish Mukherjee, Country Manager India & SAARC, SonicWall puts forward, “We track mobile malware attack attempts on the global SonicWall installed base. So far, in 2018, SonicWall Capture Labs detected over 133 million attack attempts on Android devices, up from a total year count in 2017 of 64m. And, another data point, Android accounted for 21% of the never-before-seen malware detected by SonicWall Capture ATP using Real-Time Deep Memory Inspection in September of this year. So, this is a huge and growing problem.”

Diving deep into it Sunil Kriplani, Senior Vice President (Global Sales and Marketing), eScan opines, “The penetration of mobile malware is marginally low when compared with the PC based malware. Recently there has been an increase in the take-down of Fake Apps existing on Playstore by Google. Mobile/ Android-based malware are existing due to the sheer fact that the policies of Google Playstore aren’t as stringent as those of the Apple Store.

Furthermore, side-loading of Android-based apps is relatively very easy when compared with iOS, hence Android-based malware shall thrive and continue to grow for years to come.”

Types of launching a threat

• Exercise caution when receiving emails from people or organisations you don’t know, or with unexpected requests or attachments.

• Always double-check the integrity and origin of websites before clicking on links. If in doubt, call the service provider to verify.

• Manage mobile devices so that personal and business data is separated, if the business has a BYOD policy.

• Provide a secure VPN for staff to connect remotely to the corporate network.

• Always implement the latest updates to your operating system and apps.

Source: Kaspersky

"The situation is quite alarming, mostly due to the low awareness about the need for adequate security amongst mobile users. The increase in the number of mobilebased threats such as Banking Trojans and cryptomining attacks is indicative of a growing shift towards exploiting vulnerable mobile devices to compromise sensitive personal information"

are often delivered through legitimate ad networks and may not appear outright spammy, but can contain Trojans or lead to malicious websites when clicked on.

bad mobile apps, masquerading as something authentic. Most of these treacherous apps can be found on less-than-reputable third-party app stores.

A keylogger, or keystroke logger, is a software that tracks the keystrokes performed on a mobile device—usually with the intent to steal account information, credit card numbers, and other private data. Security researchers claim that a flaw in the way certain apps run while in the background, can be utilized to monitor what you type onto the touchscreen.

Often, these threats are delivered through

Ransomware is perhaps the most devious mobile malware tactic through which hackers can gain access to photos, videos, and other personal information until the ransom is paid to the hacker. Another harmful form of malware is Trojans. Trojans masquerade as harmless applications, tricking users into downloading and using them. Once successively installed, they then can steal personal data, crash a device, spy on the users’ activities, or even launch a DDoS attack.”

"Mobile threats are a looming threat that must be addressed, especially as the mobile-shopping and Mobile payments are gaining popularity"

January 2019 www.varindia.com

• Restrict what apps can be installed on corporate devices.

SANJAY KATKAR Joint MD and CTO Quick Heal Technologies

RAJESH MAURYA Regional Vice President India & SAARC, Fortinet

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Steps to Follow to Avoid Cyber Threat

Sanjit Chatterjee, CEO, REVE Antivirus says, “There are several ways of launching threat in a mobile device starting from Trojan attack, Botnet to Malvertising. Trojans usually pose as legitimate applications, which are downloaded in ignorance. Trojans may be clubbed with a free software and gets activated when the program is installed. Apart from Trojans, we have analysed that infections through Botnets have also increased.”

With the growing penetration of mobiles in the country, the mobile security landscape is becoming quite distressing as low awareness on mobile security is increasing the number of threats. People are falling easy prey to cyber criminals. Mobile based threats includes Banking Trojans, cryptomining etc. Cyber criminals are also using instant messaging apps, social engineering and adware are few popular ways of launching a threat.

“The situation is quite alarming, mostly due to the low awareness about the need for adequate security amongst mobile users. The increase in the number of mobile-based threats such as Banking Trojans and cryptomining attacks is indicative of a growing shift towards exploiting vulnerable mobile devices to compromise sensitive personal information.

Instant messaging apps are also fast becoming a conduit for spam messages and fake offers, which are basically phishing attacks which lure users into clicking on malicious links with the intent of stealing sensitive data and gaining control over their devices. This is in addition to the phishing emails and SMS used by hackers to trick users into clicking

SUNIL KRIPLANI Senior Vice President (Global Sales and Marketing), eScan

"Recently there has been an increase in the take-down of Fake Apps existing on Playstore by Google. Mobile/Androidbased malware are existing due to the sheer fact that the policies of Google Playstore aren’t as stringent as those of the Apple Store"

technologies and features to meet evolving consumer demands.

To offer better services to its customers, banks have come up with Mobile banking apps which gave respite to customers from going to bank for any kind of transaction. However, with India becoming a digital economy, every sector, including banking has witnessed malware attacks.

“Banking malware codes are specifically designed to steal financial information and

SHRENIK BHAYANI General Manager, Kaspersky Lab (South Asia)

"Mobile banking Trojans are one of the most infamous type of malware, as they are designed to steal money directly from mobile users’ bank accounts"

on a malicious link. Another major method employed to compromise a mobile phone is social engineering.

Adware have also become a prominent threat, with cybercriminals leveraging them aggressively to display ads to users and generate more revenue. What’s particularly alarming about adware, despite being seemingly harmless, is that they have the capability to collect device info like IMEI, phone number, bookmarks etc. This information can then be leveraged to launch highly-targeted spear phishing and social engineering attacks,” explains Sanjay Katkar, Joint Managing Director and Chief Technology Officer, Quick Heal Technologies.

Financial Services Industry on the radar

It's no secret that the financial services industry is a top target for cybercriminals looking to steal valuable data. This growing risk comes at a time when financial services firms are turning their focus to innovating new

transfer funds to their bank accounts. In infected devices banking malwares first search for banking or payment apps and then create a fake pop-up overlay page. Once users open them to enter their credentials the information is sent directly to the attacker's servers. For example, the Marcher banking malware discovered by Check Point superimposed a fake credit card payment page over the original one to steal credit card information and bank credentials that it relayed to an external server.

Another source of banking malware is through the device’s app store itself where fake apps of many payment and banking vendors exist and show up for downloading. A prime example is the BankBot Trojan that was first detected by Check Point. The Trojan was programmed to embed itself in the codes of various apps on the Google Play Store. Once it was downloaded by the unsuspecting user, the hidden banking malware asked for accessibility permissions that granted it almost complete control over the device,” defines Venugopal N, Director-Security Engineering, Check Point Software Technologies, India & SAARC.

In the banking industry, mobile banking Trojans falls under the well-known malwares.

These kind of malwares are designed to loot money directly from mobile user’s bank accounts and the cyber criminals prefer these kind of attacks as it is an easy profit for them.

Further explaining Shrenik Bhayani, General Manager, Kaspersky Lab (South Asia) says, “Mobile banking Trojans are one of the most infamous type of malware, as they are designed to steal money directly from mobile users’ bank accounts. This type of attack is attractive to cybercriminals from all over the world, looking for an easy profit. The malware is typically disguised as a legitimate app, to lure people into installing it. Once the banking app is launched, the Trojan displays its own interface overlaying the banking app’s interface. When the user inputs credentials, the malware steals the information.

The second quarter of 2018 experienced a massive influx of these types of Trojan at 61,045, which is a historic high in all the time that Kaspersky Lab has been observing such threats. The greatest contribution to the number was made by the creators of Trojan Hqwar, with about half of the new modifications discovered relating to this malware. Trojan Agent took second place with around 5,000 packages.”

To sum up

Hackers will continue to scale up their ways of launching attacks. With time, they will come up with different sophisticated threats which will be more infamous and damaging.

Though banks are taking required steps to fortify its security ecosystem hackers are also upping their game with innovative ways of attacks. Lack of awareness among the mobile users is the prime reason behind the increased rate of cyber attack. It is our responsibility to use mobile devices wisely so that we do not become an easy victim.

It is therefore important that customers observe necessary security safeguards using their smartphones such as: strong passwords, staying alert when an app asks for permission to gain access to your mobile device, ensuring that you are using your bank’s official app and not falling prey to a fake one and by never clicking on a link sent to you by the name of ‘Your Bank’, to name a few.

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COVER STORY

A Simpler, Easier to understand partner program is the key to Success!

With market competition intensifying and business becoming more challenging for new customer acquisitions and engagement, classic partner programs are seen to be evolving. The exponential pace of change has created anxiety across the IT industry. Any information system upgrades for improved partner experiences should deliver accurate information, address the right issues, and demonstrate an understanding of partner experiences.

The changes vendors seek in partner programs ought to be realistic, scalable, and ensure that a system infrastructure is in place to incentivize partners wherever they operate globally. For instance, Nutanix has opted to completely revamp its channel program with a new Velocity program (mid-marketfocused) and launched its Power to Partner program channel charter shortly after, with an emphasis on enabling partners’ sales and marketing, but with no revenue requirements for partners.

Dell EMC, on the other hand, has made services revenue compulsory for partner program membership. Juniper Networks, Oracle, and Red Hat (being acquired by IBM) have built new specializations and programs aimed specifically at growing partner cloud business practices, while Cisco is embarking on a multi-year journey to shift all its partner programs and incentives towards subscription and lifecycle services. VMware is leveraging its partnership with AWS to recruit experienced cloud and software partners. To streamline partner processes, HPE Pointnext reorganized its 14 services rebate categories into four.

Customer experience is becoming an important metric. Cloud service provider vendors AWS, Google and Alibaba Cloud are ramping up investments in partner enablement, investing in partner training and growing their portfolio of vertical, solution, and workload partner competencies. As partners increasingly develop hybrid business models shifting towards software, subscription and services, incremental benefits can center around partner activities related to customer adoption and post-sales services.

Partners working with numerous vendors have little patience for complex changes and may feel forced when changes happen suddenly.

Partner program leaders therefore should be compelled to build simplicity into partner programs by design, taking a grounded approach towards change at the same time. Otherwise, they will be forced into changing programs, and risk alienating key partners.

VIVEK SHARMA

Managing Director, India, Data Center Group, Lenovo “In today’s changing business landscape, having a trusted partner network has never been more important.

In the past, businesses used to be able to handle one transaction at a time, before moving on to another, but those days are gone. We have first hands experience with this, as we are a channel-first company with 90% of our DCG business coming through our channel partners.

We are continually improving our infrastructure and processes to promote ease of doing business with channel partners. We have a couple of exciting announcements to come, including Lenovo Bid Portal and Lenovo Maestro, with both to be launched in early 2019.

We constantly strive to be the technology vendor that will grow alongside channel partners in the changing business landscape. We are committed to revamping the channel experience, helping our channel partners stay relevant and future proof their business through continuous dialogue with our partners to take on board their feedback.

We are 100% committed to the growth and future of our channel partnerships in India and Asia Pacific.

We continually review our partner programmes as part of our goal of promoting ease of doing business with channel partners.”

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RAMYA CHATTERJEE

Director – Sales (Visualization & Entertainment), Barco India “Barco offers an engaging framework to bring visualization solutions to the market. Partners who join the Barco Connect! program will have multiple advantages such as Reliability, Simplicity and Engagement.

Moreover, we do a thorough channel survey before introducing any partner program in India. The key to success is not what you want as an OEM … rather gauge the pulse & sentiment of your channel ecosystem that actually inspires & motivate your channel partners to achieve your program objectives.

Periodically we review the programs and partner engagement team (from Sales & Marketing departments) keep on motivating & inspiring partners to achieve the set goals of the programs.

Barco has designed the program to help partners promote Barco products and services better, augment their expertise and resources, and enhance the satisfaction of Barco's end-users. The Connect! program offers a number of partner levels with varying associated benefits and requirements. The partner level is determined on objective accreditation criteria. As of the most recent update of the Connect! the program, there are three partner levels: (i) "Authorized" partner level, (ii) "Silver" partner level, and (iii) “Gold” partner level.”

PIYUSH SOMANI

(Founder, MD & CEO) - ESDS Software Solution “At ESDS we strongly believe in administrating a partner program which would always keep the partner very relevant to his business and that is why we do not believe in offering huge commission upfront because we think giving something to the partner on a recurring basis for a certain amount of time will increase his trust in our Business. The partner’s relationship with the end customer should be maintained properly and he should be nurtured because that is extremely crucial for our business.

To keep things easy, we believe in giving our partners a flat commission during the lifetime of the contract when they bring business opportunities to us. We offer our partners a fix percentage on a month-on-month or quarterly basis and if they want a different structure, we then make some exceptions by designing a commission structure for them but still offering a flat percentage is always our first preference. We increase the percentage rate based on the partner’s performance and the new opportunities he brings to our business which in return helps him earn more and improve their margins.”

J N MYLARAIAH

Director, Sales, Enterprise, India & SAARC - CommScope “CommScope believes that strong collaboration between Partner, CommScope and customer—sharing the goal of solving a problem, is the best way to bring CommScope solutions to market. Through periodic reviews of our partners’ program, we are able to assess how we can enable our partners to better serve our customers.CommScope believes that strong collaboration between Partner, CommScope and customer is the best way to bring CommScope solutions to market.

CommScope offers its partners training and certification through its market leading CommScope Infrastructure Academy, among other benefits. It is not enough to just provide partners with innovative solutions and products that is why we also work with them on training to provide an even deeper level of value.

Our partners play a key role to offer a comprehensive benefit to our customers, which can only be achieved by the strength of a solid network of experience, knowledge and teamwork. The PartnerPRO Network consists of authorized distributors, installers, consultants and integrators backed by the global experience of CommScope and trained to provide local insight that puts our solutions to work for customers.”

VINAY SINHA

Senior Director - APJ - AMD “AMD has partnered with major system integrators globally and with platform design wins from all toptier PC OEMs, we have established ourselves with a strong marketing push. Through collaborations with our strong partner base in India, we are helping large enterprises, SMEs, government departments and the public at large, implement high performance computing in their everyday life.

Given today’s highly competitive market, we have an assigned channel team in India that solely focus on taking our product messaging and programs to the channel partners across the country. AMD’s channel partners are broadly classified by the line of business they address, such as component (DIY), consumer and commercial verticals and we have different programs that address their needs based on the segment they address. We believe that our partners’ success is critical to AMD’s success and invest heavily in partner education and host seminars, trainings and webinars frequently to help them refresh their AMD product knowledge. We will continue developing our partner base in India by adding discerning, experienced and effective channel partners and bringing unique channel enablement programs.”

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COVER STORY RITESH SYAL

Senior Director and Head – Alliances & Channels, Oracle India “Partners play a very important role in our success. In fact partners account for almost 40% of our overall revenue and for nearly 80% of our transactions globally. As part of this process, we take regular feedback from partners on the programs via periodic reviews and try to make them simple and easy to execute for all stakeholders. We also bring in global learnings and customize it to India as apt. With customers as the epicentre, we focus on empowering partners through the year with meetups, online and in-person trainings and joint go-to-market programs - ultimately to deliver a compelling customer experience with a services led approach.

From a cloud growth strategy, we are focusing on two things in 2019 - (a) becoming the market leader in cloud SaaS, powered by our cloud ERP offerings; (b) helping customers upgrade to the technology of tomorrow, today - starting with the world’s first autonomous database. We have defined clear-cut partner enablement strategies on both fronts and we expect 2019 to be a significant year for Oracle India, led by strong partner collaboration for customer success.”

M GURUDUTT

Director, Channel Sales Management & Transaction Business – Schneider Electric “There is huge shift in the market where most partners are looking to move away from Product-centric business to Solution & Service-centric business which helps them to achieve sustainable growth with improved profitability. At Schneider Electric, we understand this and have robust plan to offer partners not only state of art product to help customers but also with a program which upgrade partners to add more value through varieties of solution centric approach.

We work closely with our partners by understanding their long and short term need in our business planning. Our Channel Partner program is designed based on constant feedback of the entire ecosystem. The program is flexible and better-targeted that includes new solutions and services. It is now easier to use through process and online changes for channel to have that increased ability to move up through the program level and access the additional benefits. APC by Schneider is more committed to helping channel partners to turn the market challenges by offering innovative solutions that are easy to sell to their enterprise customers.”

RAJARSHI BHATTACHARYYA Country Head - SUSE

“SUSE’s new channel program is based on “Technology” certification. Based on their certification, they will get “tier uplift” which will enable them to attain various channel benefits associated with their partner status. This will foster quicker adoption of technology and enhance the potential of cash in on the service revenue associated with product sales.

2018 was a good year for SUSE. As a company, we announced back in last July that SUSE will become a fully independent company from Micro Focus, as we partner EQT a growth investor to continue and even accelerate our momentum as a leading provider of enterprise-grade, open source software-defined infrastructure and application delivery solutions. In India, our growth was also evident. We continue to maintain our leadership in manufacturing while growing our presence in BFSI, and private enterprise as well as public sector business opportunities are also keeping us busy last year. On channel front, we have recruited over 100 partners in India in 2018 and more than 14 partners have become accredited partners of SUSE.”

VISHAL PAREKH

Marketing Director, Kingston Technology India “We understand that the new business models are not very different from the traditional channels that India has been accustomed to. Kingston is known to work with channel partners with good and bad times, which is the main derivative of such partner programs. By strategizing this aspect effectively over so many years since our inception in India, we educate and support our partners to evolve with our new business strategies, latest innovations, future plans and strong after sales service.

Kingston is a channel friendly company and our Channel Partner Programs have always played an essential role in strengthening the relationship between us and the partners. Our partner programs start with a specific need & a foresight which is then developed into a feasible program for giving them an edge in the market. We then make use of an efficient communication model to inform our channel network about the program with relevant valid market information. The motive is to move the benefits directly or indirectly to our massive customer base. We strongly believe that simplicity is a key for a successful partner program. The easier it is to understand, the easier it is to implement and the easier it is to be executed by all levels in the supply chain.”

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RAJESH GOENKA

Director, Sales and Marketing, RP tech India “The success of any program depends on its creativity, rewards and ROI. Ideally partner programs should differ as much as possible to maintain its uniqueness. Vendors and distributors should try different methodology to design programs for various layers of the channels. However, any program is successful when a partner gets acknowledged and rewarded in a consistent fashion.

RP tech India is known in the industry for rolling out incentive programs that are way ahead of its times. We were the first distributor to organize a foreign trip for partners. Continuing our efforts to boost channel morale, we introduce various mystery schemes and family incentive programs. We recently unveiled the multi-city Touching Everyone’s Life (TEL) program, which aimed at providing hands-on training on new technology. We also collaborate with partners on various social causes. In short, we leverage every platform to have deeper engagement with partners and help them achieve their business goals.

Once a partner gets into the program he prefers to stay with that vendor and not scout for competing products.”

RAVI RAJ

Brand Head & Director - NetRack “Partner program is the prominent medium which helps the channel partners to clearly understand the current and future emerging business models and assist them in developing specific strategies to operate in specific/particular regions. As considerable percentage of our business runs through channel partners, we invest good amount of time in designing and cross verifying the best training program for them. We frequently organize partners meet in which our partners operating/handling different regions get a chance to directly meet us and share their feedback of the market.

Partner programs offered has a remarkable role in enabling the partner easily understand the product/ technology we provide and help them to analyze the markets from which they can reap good benefits. It also helps them to develop/create a blueprint to enter the global markets and allows space to achieve higher targets/revenue/profits. We always try to have a simplified partner program which is easily understandable and implementable by our partners. Sketching down/Laying out our business plan/strategy and designing the partner program goes parallel in our process.”

GAURAV AHLUWALIA

Managing Director - R&M India “R&M is into structured cabling market/provider space which involves frequent innovations to our products/solutions to meet the ever changing requirements of our clients. Conducting Partner programs help us to enrich our channel partners with the knowledge of new products and updates done for the existing products. This helps them to explore newer markets. It also helps us to collect feedback from the customers and have a clear understanding on their demands. Partner programs are the building blocks of any channel business. They bring us remarkable results and also good business to our partners. Considering the current and future scenarios of Indian market, we design effective partner programs and road shows which not only help us to increase our business figures but also accelerate the growth of our channel partners. R&M's regional sales representatives are always engaging with our partners in their respective regions.

R&M designs partner programs with high quality standards for pre- and post-sales activities. Best practices and series of comprehensive programs offered by R&M Academy molds our partners to achieve precision in installation, testing and maintenance.”

AVINASH GARG

HeaD CHANNEL ALLIANCES & MID MARKET - INDIA & SAARC, FireEye Technologies India “Investing in partner programs is always a good strategy to encourage and build an efficient partner ecosystem for any vendor. To remain relevant and ahead of the competition, these programs need to evolve along with the market. To keep pace with today’s developments, vendors are designing their partner programs based on the specific market segments, verticals or geographies that they cater to.

At FireEye, we make sure that our partners maintain a level of differentiation in the market and also have access to the resources required to deliver exceptional customer value. While designing these partner programs, we continue to assess the structure and offerings to ensure that it supports our key objectives of partnering.

Our partner programs are easy to understand and implement, attributing to our simplified pricing model and offerings that help the partner’s sales and pre-sales team to understand all the details. For example, the FireEye Security Suite program is designed especially for partners who are focused on the mid-market. A simple program yet delivers the Enterprise grade security to the organizations.”

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COVER STORY RAJESH DOSHI

Director - Zebronics India “Channel partners are a very crucial part of the business for Zebronics. They play a very crucial role in our business model and we make sure that they get their due.

As a company, we ensure that our partners always get their due for the efforts they put in. We have many programs where incentives are given in kind; cash incentives are generally passed on as discounts, leading to unnecessary competition and interest of partners getting lost. We also have specific programs designed for the benefit of partners like for instance earlier we had organized an information program on GST, this was again for the benefit of partners.

As a company, we ensure in keeping things as simple and straightforward as we can for our partners. If the program is not clear, even if are able to loop in the partners in the program, there would be dissatisfaction, in time to come partner would be hesitant to join the partner programs. We have a large sales team equipped to handle queries and focus at ensuring that the programs are fully understood by the partners.”

MANDAR JOSHI

Vice President Sales, DIGISOL Systems “As technology sector continues to evolve, the landscape of channel partner engagement is changing. We have always been a channel driven company and our endeavor is to always improvise on our channel policies and time and again we have been recognized by the channel community as one of the most channel friendly companies in India. We ensure healthy margins for the Channel and also introduce new products with newer applications to increase the scope of growth for the Channel. These new products and solutions enable the channel to value add and hence can generate better margins from their customers. We feel that profitability of the partners plays an important role in motivating them.

These days vendors and channel partners are working together and forming a stronger alliance, compared to the past, where vendors and partners alike sold a product and then would go a year or longer without speaking to each other. With the changes happening in the market ecosystem, vendors have understood the importance of not just educating the partners about their product offerings but also building a relation which goes beyond partnership.”

DR RISHI MOHAN BHATNAGAR President - Aeris India

“At Aeris, we believe that good partners are the key to success and investing in partnerships and shaping them to be mutually beneficial for business and value generation for clients is more critical than ever.

In our line of business, partners play a key role in the value chain. The partner program requires a comprehensive process for complete on boarding post through evaluation and selection, regular communication, sharing information beneficial for business, joint go to market and ongoing support in all engagements, big and small.

We have built the process to keep the program simple and transparent with all stakeholders. We have identified areas of interventions which have helped us establish simple processes for easy and quick onboarding of new partners. We hold knowledge exchange sessions on operating and growth markets to insights on our solutions and services for the development of business solutions. We have well establish process among the device, solution and connectivity partners to handle to defects pertaining to different parts (device, solution, connectivity) of the IoT solution.”

SUNIL KRIPALANI

Senior Vice President (Global Sales and Marketing) - MicroWorld “We have today more than 10,000 active channel partners across India. Channel partners help us to reach our audience efficiently and widely. We have not actively restrained from selling online, but we allow our partner to sell through these market places and help them with back-end support they require from time to time.

We work with partners based on the various levels and ensure that they get maximum profitability from eScan product and solution selling and help them acquire or win new customers through lead support and sales support. Our comprehensive channel program encompasses technical, sales, & marketing training and support programs for our esteemed channel partners. We have as discussed earlier elaborate programs for sale training, incentive, marketing support and coop marketing programs and comprehensive security certification program to empower our channel partners to provide the best security solution for their customers. We are further enhancing the value added services such as rewards and incentive programs to recognize the proactive partners for their dedicated efforts in promoting eScan.”

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ASHISH P. DHAKAN

MD & CEO, Prama Hikvision India “It’s imperative to have well planned Partners Programs in the wake of rising competition. It complements the vendor’s key role to provide sales support for system integrator, partners and resellers for their valuedadded services, including managing reseller relationships, processing orders and providing technical support.

We do have the periodic review of partner programs to check its impact on our respective market segments.

Even if things are working, there is always room for perfection. By taking ownership of the program and making an honest commitment to never-ending improvement, we can take things to the next level.

It has a very effective role as to develop the marketing strategy for growing partner revenue. Also to adopt different business modules which facilitate to support the cloud computing market with deep industry knowledge.

One factor that defines the success of a partner program is its simplicity. We always design our partner program in a simplest form so that our partners can have easy access. We also focus on selecting the ideal partners, who are ready to align their goals for a successful program implementation.”

SANDEEP BHAMBHURE

Managing Director, India and SAARC, Veeam “Partners play a key role in our success as it helps in not only expanding our reach but also deliver market specific capabilities and expertise. The ever evolving technology landscape demands continued innovation and robust go-to-market strategy from vendors as well as partners to meet the challenging business needs. As cloud and the adoption of emerging technologies gain momentum, vendors and partners must increasingly focus on developing knowledge-based partnership through sustained engagements.

At Veeam, we are a 100 percent partner-led company and they play a key role in driving the company’s growth. We work with partners and engage in a strong program, called the Veeam ProPartner program.

While designing a vibrant partner profitable program, we ensure to offer optimum resources and trainings to equip the partners with capabilities for robust implements and effectively support Veeam solutions. We are committed to provide accessibility of the tools and resources necessary to differentiate their business for continued growth.”

NEERAJ BHATIA

Director - Channel and Partner Alliances, Red Hat India and South Asia “Partner programs have become an integral part of business strategies to grow in unfamiliar and new territories, tap new customers or sell additional solutions and services. We at Red Hat, believe that strategic partnerships are fundamental to ensure our customers’ success. Our partners with leading platform architects provide solutions that speed deployment, improve performance, and maximize return on investment.

In 2019, we will continue to support to our partners. For instance, we plan to up-skill our partners and build programs that are designed to enable them to take advantage of the opportunity to help enterprises and governments in India accelerate innovation through more agile IT infrastructure and applications.

Our partner program, Red Hat Partner Connect, supports the evolving needs of our partners — so we can share in both collaboration and success. Our program offers a flexible structure designed to accommodate our partners’ individual business models while also providing them access to a variety of benefits that help develop our partners expertise and increase their capability to sell and deliver Red Hat technologies.”

CHANDRAHAS PANIGRAHI

CMO & Consumer Business Head, Acer “Acer has always been a channel friendly company and we believe in growing with our channel partners.

Our partners have played a pivotal role in positioning Acer as a leader in the technology segment and remain the key medium to reach out to our target audience. They are an extension of our company and the only go to route for us. Few factors that we definitely need to keep in mind are good rebates and incentives, account management, front end discounts, regular trainings, service support, ease new partner onboarding processes, providing the right sales and marketing materials, progress reports and many others. In addition to these, we also look at specific regions, the potential to grow and acceptability of our products into that existing ecosystems.

The days of going it alone in marketing is long gone. Over the years, the relationship between brands and partners have changed quite a bit. Mutual access and communication between brands and partners is important to develop a good equation. At Acer, we do things right, and we're always getting better and that's the reason we boast a cadre of key partners who bring loyalty and long-term relationships on their side of

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COVER STORY RAGHURAM KRISHNAN Director – Partner, Citrix India

“Partners play a crucial role in enabling our growth. Their industry knowledge and insight backed by technical expertise help us in effectively reaching out to our customers. It is therefore crucial for a vendor to set up a well thought out partner program that ensures mutual growth.

For a partner program to be successful and ensure value delivery to the customer, it must be designed to satisfy three points. Firstly, there needs to be clarity in terms of the offerings as well as the market to be addressed, followed by identifying the most active channel from that market segment and finally the value chain for the customer.

Once a partner program has been designed and implemented, it is vital to monitor the success rate of the program at periodic intervals so as to guarantee value delivery and continued progress. At Citrix, we conduct quarterly reviews to assess and ensure that there is continued benefit for both vendor and partner and also how we can work on taking it to the next level to achieve the goals that we had set in place.”

MURALI URS

Country Manager - India Barracuda Networks “The evolution of Partner programs is key to retaining and growing with partners. Partners are always looking at emerging trends in the market and how they can capitalise on the same. They will choose to partner with OEM’s who can help them cross sell and upsell into the new emerging trends while finding synergy with their existing business.

The channel eco-system has seen a quick change in the last 2 – 3 years. With the advent and adoption of SaaS and cloud platform based solutions, a host of new partners have emerged. These new partners bring in a lot of new ideas to the table and also give OEM’s new avenues to open doors with customers.

The partner program has to also be in line with these demands in the market which will encourage the partners to pick OEM vendors who firstly have the solution stack to help them address this new emerging market and secondly will look for vendors who have a good program that will help them to scale both technologically and give them good returns for their business.”

SHANTARAM SHINDE

VP & National Head - Channel Business, NTT Com-Netmagic “We see mainly two types of competitions in the markets, which calls for evolution of business models in overall Partner Business ecosystem - competition from New age Hyperscalers, which has created threat to traditional infrastructure business model and the second competition is from Within the Partner Organisation itself.

Netmagic has tailored partner programs – Reseller Partner Program and Solution Partner Program, which are customized for both of the above types. The programs take care of matured partner organisations as well as new organisations. With our 18+ years of Industry experience and 11+ years of Partner ecosystem experience we have managed to keep it very simple yet very effective. Our partner programs are detailed to ensure that there is no room for misunderstanding, doubts, or error. However, ‘detail’ must not be confused with complexity. Detailed matter is what eradicates any confusion giving way for simplicity. Whether it is a partnership or rudimentary task, clear and simple communication is the best route to complete goals with ease. We ensure this by practicing this perspective through constant and transparent conversations regarding

JITENDRA GHUGHAL

Director Channels, India & SAARC - Fortinet “Partner programs need to continuously be optimized to make it easier for partners to be in the business without losing focus on growth. The Fortinet Alliances Ecosystem and partner program brings together a community of global technology vendors with specialized expertise. Our Partners have the flexibility to offer pre-validated technology solutions from Fabric Ready alliance partners ensuring investment protection for customers through the seamless integration with existing infrastructure. We have a long-term business association with partners by rewarding their investments and time by promoting them to higher levels in our Partner Program.

Partners have always been a critical element of Fortinet’s go-to-market strategy. Our goal is to enable our partners to transform the security of their customers, enabling them to safeguard their evolving network requirements. We continuously take feedback from our partners to optimize our partner support program to ensure flexibility and ease of transacting business. Fortinet also works with our distributors to build options for MSSPs to lease security solutions like our FortiGate Firewall on a monthly rental.”

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TECH TRENDS

What 2019 has in store for the Indian Tech industry?

India is growing through a phase of digital transformation where businesses of every size is adopting digitalization in everyday work, making their life easy. But the core aspect of today’s every business remains the data. The year 2018 has been a remarkable year in terms of new technology implementations and most importantly digital transformation. Like every other country, the Indian IT industry has also started making convincing strides to new digital businesses. In the coming years, we will get to see CIOs becoming more focused on building AI strategy and investment plans for their enterprises, in order to remain digitally strong.

2019 will see the most innovative companies showing off truly impactful examples of digital transformation, with many more coming to the market over the next three years. The year 2019 will be dominated by Machine Learning (ML), Artificial Intelligence (AI), which will eventually propel advancements in Internet of Things (IoT) and Robotic Process Automation (RPA).

But the biggest reform of 2018 had been the implementation of GDPR and it becoming

a global regulation. GDPR brought a higher level of scrutiny than ever before to how organizations collect, store, share and use personal information (including that captured by video surveillance). The crash in Bitcoin value happened to be another significant event that potentially signalled a bubble-bursting moment for cryptocurrencies.

With the growing popularity of future technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, IoT and multi cloud, security is becoming not only a technological asset but a necessity. Integrating security and establishing standards is the critical first step while deploying a new technology.

Cyber attackers will get smarter and use new techniques such as leveraging social engineering to mimic behaviour.

“This is where machine learning and AI will step in to spot unusual patterns in the large volumes of data generated. While AI can identify the employee most likely to be

SECURITY '’This year with the evolution of cyberattacks, the industry has seen threats which have changed the face of cybersecurity,” comments Srinivas Rao, Co-founder and CEO, Aujas.

“With rampant digitalization, came massive security breaches and ransomware attacks like the highly publicized Cosmos attack; but this only accelerated the need for advanced security measures. Regulations such as GDPR and Sri Krishna panel recommendations on data protection further pushed Indian enterprises to bolster their security standpoints. CIOs are now more aware of the significant impact a cyber-attack can have to an organization’s reputation and balance sheet.”

Indrajit Belgundi General Manager Client Solutions Group, Dell India

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TECH TRENDS money laundering, evasion techniques, and vulnerability exploits.

Also, cyber-attacks will become much simpler with easy access to technologies. The availability of modular attack components on the underground market is expected to enable attackers to combine and repurpose established tactics and technologies to achieve new goals.

II. The Dawn of Adversarial AI

Prabhakar Jayakumar Country Director DigitalOcean India targeted for a cyber-attack, the focus must shift away from technology and focus more towards training and awareness, the ultimate goal being to instil resilience throughout the organization,” says Srinivas.

The McAfee Labs 2019 Threats Predictions Report, identifies rising trends and how they are predicted to change the cyber threat landscape in 2019. “In 2018, we witnessed greater collaboration among cybercriminals through underground alliances,” says Venkat Krishnapur, Vice President of Engineering and Managing Director, McAfee India. “This collaborative mentality has allowed for efficiencies in underground technologies and tactic. However, while we expect the underground market collaboration to continue, the year 2019 will also see Cybersecurity alliances of defenders continuing to mature and further fortify defenses.”

A new class of attacks known as ‘DeepAttacks’ is seen emerging, which use AIgenerated content to evade AI security controls.

Security teams in 2018 observed many examples where researchers used adversarial AI algorithms to fool humans. According to Avast research, 2019 will expect to see DeepAttacks deployed more commonly in an attempt to evade both human detection and smart defences.

The McAfee Labs Threats Predictions Report also asserts that artificial intelligence-asa-service will enable cybercriminals to develop cyber-attacks with increasingly sophisticated evasion techniques.

In addition, bots used to amplify deceitful messaging have already been created and are available for sale on the cybercriminal underground. Following in the footsteps of recent infamous nation-state campaigns to sway public opinion, cybercriminals will likely repurpose bots and leverage social media to extort organizations by threatening their brands.

Attackers won’t just target AI systems, they will enlist AI techniques themselves to supercharge their own criminal activities.

According to Rajarshi Bhattacharyya, Country Head -SUSE, most of the organizations have some idea of making their software more secure, but the strategies are often at odds with the goals of DevOps culture. “Corporate and enterprises have begun adopting DevOps practices and are experiencing numerous benefits.

However, DevOps has generally not lived up to expectations when it comes to security,” he reiterates. “In 2019, we strongly believe that the relationship between Development and Operations will be expanded to include Security.

And hence: DevSecOps. It will bring security back into the service delivery equation.”

The trends in the security domain for 2019 will be -

I. A more effective cyber-criminal underground Cybercriminals are quickly fortifying the malware-as-a-service market by aligning to sell modular attack components. These onestop shops make it easier for criminals of all experience and skill levels to execute successful attacks. This market consolidation will continue in 2019 and cybercriminal enterprises are expected to flourish as established cyber gangs partner with other top-level services such as

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Snehashish Bhattacharjee Global CEO Denave Automated systems powered by AI could probe networks and systems searching for undiscovered vulnerabilities that could be exploited. AI could also be used to make phishing and other social engineering attacks even more sophisticated by creating extremely realistic video and audio or well-crafted emails designed to fool targeted individuals. AI could also be used to launch realistic disinformation campaigns. For example, imagine a fake AI-created, realistic video of a

Ross McKercher CISO Sophos company CEO announcing a large financial loss, a major security breach, or other major news.

Widespread release of such a fake video could have a significant impact on the company before the true facts are understood.

However there is an AI security story on the brighter side. Threat identification systems already use machine learning techniques to identify entirely new threats. And, it isn’t just attackers that can use AI systems to probe for open vulnerabilities; defenders can use AI to better harden their environments from attacks.

For example, AI-powered systems could launch a series of simulated attacks on an enterprise network over time in the hope that an attack iteration will stumble across a vulnerability that can be closed before it’s discovered by attackers.

III. Evolution of Mobile Threats In 2019, well known tactics such as advertising, phishing and fake apps will continue to dominate the mobile threat landscape.

Fake apps are the zombies in mobile security, becoming so ubiquitous that they barely even make the headlines as new fake apps pop up to take the place of the ones already flagged for removal. They will continue to persist as a trend in 2019, exacerbated by fake versions of popular app brands doing their rounds on the Google Play Store.

“PC viruses, while still a global threat, have been joined by a multitude of malware categories that deliver more attacks. People are acquiring more and varied types of connected devices, meaning every aspect of our lives could be compromised by an attack. Looking ahead to 2019, these trends point to a magnification of threats through these expanding threat surfaces,” says a spokesperson from Avast.

IV. Threat to Cloud, Home IoT, and Social Media Platforms With access to increasingly effective tactics and strategies, bad actors will have the ability to focus their attacks on broader and more complicated targets. In 2019, cybercriminals are anticipated to target intellectual property, Internet of Things (IoT) in the home and identity

TECH TRENDS element could ask mobile users to install a new banking app, for instance, and this malicious app will then capture authentication messages.

Routers will continue to be used as targets of an attack, not just to run malicious scripts or spy on users, but also as an intermediate link in chain attacks.

Sangram Singh CEO Freecharge credentials via the cloud, digital assistants, and social media platforms, respectively.The trend toward smart devices will be so pronounced in the coming years that it will become difficult to buy appliances or home electronics that are not connected to the internet.

Avast research has shown that security is often an afterthought in the manufacturing of these devices. While the big-name smart devices often do come with embedded security options, some producers skimp on security either to keep costs low for consumers or because they are not experts in security. Considering a smart home is only as secure as its weakest link, this is a mistake. History tends to repeat itself, so we can expect to see IoT malware evolve and become more sophisticated and dangerous, similar to how PC and mobile malware developed.

“Security teams used to focus on firewalls and endpoints and many security professionals cut their teeth as system and network administrators.

Nowadays infrastructure is defined by code, breaches are increasingly caused by weak applications and automation is essential for under-staffed teams. This is changing the skillset required by security pros. We now also need to have a deep understanding of applications and an ability to build automation into our tools and processes,” says Ross McKercher, CISO – Sophos.

VI. Data security & GDPR Data security is but part of GDPR, though an important one; organisations now have the obligation to notify the regulator within 72h of a data breach being discovered.

The complete post-breach process including informing the affected individuals is now well defined and following it part of compliance requirements. “Expanding GDPR to become a global regulation is certainly a potential. For it to become a truly global regulation though, it will first need to prove its worth in its current form; once that has progressed well and has

V. Router Attacks Will Advance Routers have proven to be a simple and fertile target for a growing wave of attacks.

Not only have we seen an increase in routerbased malware in 2018, but also changes in the characteristics of those attacks.

In 2019, an increased hijacking of routers used to steal banking credentials is expected to be seen. For example, where an infected router injects a malicious HTML frame to specific web pages when displayed on mobile. This new

than it was before. The journey to data security is a marathon but the finish line is still a little blurry. Organizations must make concerted efforts towards fully adapting to policies and regulations. Enterprises will need to view regulations like the GDPR as an opportunity to encapsulate their solutions and processes in a secure IT layer.”

DIGITAL DISRUPTION Over the course of 2018, ‘digital transformation’ has become a widely used term and much-hyped concept. Businesses use the latest technology advancements to thrive and survive in this constantly evolving environment, often dubbed the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Next-generation innovations like IoT, AI and blockchain are set to have a huge impact in 2019 and beyond, with businesses aspiring to harness these technologies to evolve constantly and gain a competitive edge in the digital economy.

In 2019, large-scale social media platforms will implement additional measures to protect customer information. However, as the platforms grow in numbers, cybercriminals will be further enticed to focus their resources on attacking the data-rich environments. Highimpact attacks, such as those targeting industrial control systems, have seen success in part due to static password use across environments.

According to Riverbed predictions, 2019 will see widespread security breaches stemming from lax security across IoT devices. Smart security investments and re-engineered devices should be prioritized over ease of access. While this may slowdown the adoption of IoT devices, it will prove to be crucial to the long-term success of the technology.

Tilak Raj Dua Director General TAIPA

Nitesh Gupta Director Optiemus Infracom proven workable, the chances of it influencing international practice will be much higher,” says Vinod Ganesan, Country Manager India Cloudera. “GDPR in its current form may and likely will also evolve further. Organisations that build a solid foundation now, will be able to maintain compliance with less effort as the regulation evolves.”

“2018 has been crucial in terms of data generation, data management and security,” says Makarand Joshi - Area Vice President & Country Head, India Subcontinent, Citrix. "The importance of securely managing personal data and ensuring consent is now more pronounced

Kiran Bhagwanani, CEO of South Asia, Japan, NZ, Dimension Data says, “The world of enterprise technology is constantly evolving as the application and adoption of disruptive technologies become more widespread. We intimately understand the role new technologies can play, and we work very closely with experts across industries to help our clients make the best decisions for their businesses. The application of disruptive technologies is becoming more pervasive and their adoption is growing steadily.

We will see the most innovative companies showing off truly impactful examples of digital transformation in action in 2019 with many more coming to the market over the next three years.”

2019 will see the following trends in the Digital Disruption domain -

I. Evolution of IoT “Customers have adopted IoT in some shape or form so far. Already well-established in many businesses, IoT applications and services are leading the pack in having the greatest positive impact,” says Srinivasan CR, Chief

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TECH TRENDS business leaders think that it will have a negative impact. So, it seems that the fear of sentient robots has abated for now,” says Srinivasan CR. According to a survey by IBM, there will be improvements seen in “causal modeling” techniques that will push AI from asking "what happened" to asking “what would happen,” based on possible actions. Furthermore, trust and transparency will continue to drive the AI-conversation. There will also be increased research into how quantum computing may help scale AI models.

Vishal Agrawal Managing Director Avaya India & SAARC Digital Officer, Tata Communications. “And the future looks bright, with 48% of decision makers seeing it as having the most significant impact, ranking above any other emerging technology, in one of our study. While IoT has been consistently on predictions lists in recent years, I believe in 2019, IoT, supported by advanced connectivity solutions such as 5G and LoRaWAN, will continue to go from strength to strength especially in emerging markets such as India.”

According to Vinod Ganesan, since there are too many vulnerabilities and gaps in the security posture for IoT devices, organizations must use the data, metadata, device logs in order to treat IoT devices like any other network device to predict and accurately respond to the available signals.

Enterprise machine learning (ML) adoption on the other hand will continue as businesses look to automate pattern detection, prediction and decision making to drive transformational efficiency improvement, competitive differentiation and growth. Infrastructure and tooling will continue to evolve around efforts to streamline and automate the process of building and deploying ML apps at enterprise scale. There will be continued growth in the automated machine learning (AutoML) tools ecosystem, as vendors capitalize on opportunities to speedup time-consuming, repeatable chunks of the ML workflow, from data prep and feature engineering to model lifecycle management.

III. Blockchain finds a new lease of life Perhaps one of the most hyped new technologies of the digital era is blockchain.

AI has recently gained prominence owing to its ability to integrate with technologies like cloud, analytics and security solutions. Further, owing to the rising storage costs and increase in the number of connected devices, AI has now taken a front seat in an IT set-up. This is further validated by a Gartner forecast that pegs AI-driven business value to reach $3.9 trillion in 2022.

AI has already been adopted by 46% of global businesses in some way. “What’s even more interesting is that – despite the scaremongering around the potential negative impact of AI on people and jobs - just 8% of business leaders have no plans at all to start using AI. Furthermore, 43% of decision makers see AI as having a positive impact, and only 3% of

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others present plethora of new and continually developing opportunities that has impacted all business functions including Sales Enablement,” comments Snehashish Bhattacharjee, Global CEO Denave. “Across FMCG, healthcare, finance or shopping, AI is enabling industries to define distinct experiences, radically affecting customer engagement models.”

THE EVER-GROWING CLOUD “The choice to have a mix of public cloud and on-prem as well as multi-cloud provides companies with the flexibility to choose a solution that best fits their needs,” says Vinod Ganesan. “Any vendor that only offers one option and “locks in” a company will find their customers will be at a disadvantage.”

Vinod further adds that, as more organizations continue to see the economic and ease of use advantages of the cloud, there will be an increased investment in data management in the cloud. Data analytics use cases continue to lead the charge, especially for self-service, transient workloads, and short term workloads.

New data types will continue to be required to satisfy business analytics, including social media and Internet of Things (IoT), driving the need for inexpensive, flexible storage best served by data management in the cloud.

“Next year we will see further use cases of IoT in home spaces, smart cities and more industrial use cases in automation or autonomous vehicles. Technology ecosystems are forming so a holistic view of data across the cloud to the edge is important to maximise the benefit of the data used across these ecosystems. Cloudera can do that by making sense of the community and provide the value add and protect the data and the consumer by assuring governance and security,” he says.

II. AI & ML to go mainstream

Shailesh Kumar Dave Vice President, ManageEngine a division of Zoho Corp.

Sriram T. V Director of Consulting & Business Development - Juniper Networks, India and SAARC Shared ledgers like blockchain have the potential to enhance security while also boosting efficiency and speed. While the outlook for digital transformation in the coming year is positive, implementing new technologies like blockchain is not without its challenges. In fact, business leaders cited cost as the biggest barrier to integrating new innovations, while security and privacy were also highlighted as major challenges. ‘’2018 marked has been primarily a year of Digital disruption. Artificial Intelligence (AI), Blockchain, Advanced Analytics, Reality technologies, and Cloud computing amongst

Makarand Joshi too agrees that when analytics is integrated with machine learning and AI, it can bring forth profound changes for businesses. “In the exceedingly competitive landscape that exists today, in 2019, analytics and AI will play a huge role in getting ahead of the curb. The scope for AI adoption will further expand with sectors like education, transport, healthcare as well as government owned entities taking up this technology to improve their efficiency.”

He further adds, “Over the last decade, we witnessed the foundation of cloud and the steady transition from legacy systems to cloudfirst. Having understood how this technology’s efficiency can be maximized, cloud maturity levels have risen amongst businesses in India.

This is further validated by the research firm Gartner’s prediction that the revenue of SaaS

facilitates and lives up to the expectations of their workforce. Businesses will need to continue to invest in people-centric collaboration technologies that help workers stay agile and respond or harness every opportunity – wherever they are.

Some of the predictions with respect to workforce transformation are -

I. AR/VR, AI, ML bringing more on-site learning and creativity to the workplace Makarand Joshi Area Vice President & Country Head, India Subcontinent, Citrix (Software as a service) which is the largest segment of cloud, is set to grow 17.8% in 2019.”

Lots of countries mandate that data needs to reside within geographical boundaries.

Enterprises using SaaS or Paas will end up using country-specific public clouds or even private clouds. As a result, critical data and applications that need to be monitored will be spread across geographies. Monitoring tools and technologies that help consolidate the view of these applications and data will see larger enterprise adoption.

Leaps in Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR/VR) have been made over the course of 2018 to create more immersive, enhanced visual experiences and as a result there will be increased adoption in the workplace during 2019. Employees will be able to collaborate and create in real-time through AR and VR experiences – bringing everyone into one virtual environment as if they are all physically working together. Going forward, these technologies will be at the core of every organization’s business strategy.

“Technology today is all pervasive, making digital transformation a reality here and now!

This increase in data locality will also require federated identity and access management (IAM) with Zero Trust security considerations.

Single sign-on, multi-factor authentication, and enterprise mobility management will also become common place in the enterprises.

“Technology has become a key enabler for current and future workforces whether they are geographically and culturally distributed or going beyond language barriers where the power of AI delivers performance; to using augmented reality that helps in creativity at work,” says Indrajit Belgundi, General Manager, Client Solutions Group, Dell India.

To encourage employees share their skills and knowledge at every opportunity, businesses are looking at creating an environment that

fi connectivity and compute power to get more done, better, faster – together.

III. Diverse needs of a multigenerational workforce The workplace today has experienced a growth of millennials joining the ranks, who are eager to learn and grow with the organization.

However, the shift can also create challenges. HR leaders are tasked with addressing the concerns of a multi-generational workforce. Flexible or mobile working options can enable employees to avoid commute time and work from home, work on the go, from a customer site or even from home, removing the limitations of a physical workplace. This will boost productivity and also promote an adaptable culture.

IV. Workforce Revolution

COLLABORATION

“Businesses in 2019 and beyond will focus on adopting solutions that are agile, adaptable, open and scalable, prompting enterprise collaboration players to develop solutions which provide a seamless yet unique experience. As the workforce of today has evolved, businesses will need to adopt technology that is suited for the workforce of tomorrow, enhancing productivity and helping to share information in a secure and seamless manner,” says Vishal Agrawal, Managing Director, Avaya India & SAARC. “As we move forward, we will witness enterprise collaboration players adopting technologies such as AI, ML and blockchain to make their products more secure, bring in real-time customer sentiment analysis and provide better overall experiences to their customers.”

Vinod Ganesan Country Manager India Cloudera

Srinivas Rao Co-founder and CEO Aujas

This has had a profound impact on the way we work, live and play. Today, AI, ML, Blockchain are not buzzwords but have real-world applications that have redefined how we work, and go about our lives every day. In fact, in the last year alone, we have seen significant deployments of these technologies that have changed how enterprises make decisions, conduct business or enable consumers to engage in experiences that are richer and immersive ushering a whole new paradigm of engagement,” says Rajiv Bhalla, MD, Barco India.

II. Collaboration will be much easier 2019 will enhance the ability to quickly grab a colleague based overseas through new collaboration tools that allow us to make video calls and share files in real time. This year we will see advanced collaboration as more enterprises adopt web-based collaboration tools, and device technologies takes advantage of advances in wi-

According to Vertiv, a workforce aging into retirement and training programs lagging behind the data center and edge evolution are creating staffing challenges for data centers around the globe. This will trigger parallel actions in 2019.

Organizations in 2019 will begin to change the way they hire data center personnel, moving away from traditional training programs toward more agile, job-specific instruction with an eye toward the edge. Also, there is a high chance for businesses to turn to intelligent systems and machine learning to simplify operations, preserve institutional knowledge, and enable more predictive and efficient service and maintenance.

THE BANKING & FINTECH SECTOR “We will see deeper partnerships between Banks and Fintechs instead of Fintechs running the show independently,” says Anshul Rai, CEO and Co-Founder, Happay. “KYC will get paperless - the digital KYC space will continue to evolve and adjust to new rules. Aadhaar speculation will end. Credit will be the flavour of the season - both consumer credit and commercial credit. We will see more push for digital payments and thus, MDR and Interchange might get regulated further. Bharat QR will get

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TECH TRENDS According to COAI, if 2017 had been dubbed as the “Year of Mobile”, year 2018 may well be called the “Year of Digital” as it has been a landmark year for the telecom sector. The NDCP 2018 (National Digital Communications Policy), apart from focussing on telecom and digitalisation, aims to create 40 lakh new jobs through relevant skill improvement. The Telecom Commission was also renamed as the Digital Communications Commission, considering the scope of communications had broadened from what it was in the 90s.

Rajiv Bhalla MD Barco India pushed heavily on the acquiring side. Everyone, including the smaller merchants, will go digital faster and be able to enable transactions through QR. Acquiring terminals will increase by 10x because of easy and economical deployment of Bharat QR.” Evolving customer behaviour, increase in demands by end users has put a thrust for players to undergo rapid digital transformations and focus on delivery of new customer focused technology efficiently. This is reflected in the approaches of companies like Freecharge that wants to enhance relevance for its customers and provide exceptional user experience.

“I believe, in 2018, customer adoption has been one of the most important factors that led to multiple players entering into the fintech sector, thereby expanding the scope of the financial ecosystem. In the near future, internet and smart phone penetration will continue to be a significant driver for growth in the fintech domain. There is a huge potential in lending and investment segments for financial services penetration, considering this is still an underserved space,” says Sangram Singh, CEO, Freecharge.

“Undoubtedly, the Indian telecommunication sector has undergone a revolutionary transition in the last two decades to become the world’s second largest telecommunication market. As per the government report, the mobile sector’s contribution to GDP which is presently 6.5 percent will increase to 8.2 percent by 2020,” says Tilak Raj Dua, Director General, TAIPA. It is obvious to say that the Digital India and Smart Cities mission can be realized to its true potential only when the infrastructure for ‘last mile’ connectivity has been established. In 2019, the telecom infrastructure industry strongly believes that the future of Indian TowerCos

Srinivasan CR Chief Digital Officer Tata Communications

THE TELECOM INDUSTRY According to a report by TAIPA, in the last year, the telecommunications industry added around 40,000 mobile towers with around 2 lakh 90 thousand BTSs. The year 2018 witnessed the notification of NDCP 2018 which is an overarching forward looking and reformative comprehensive policy to transform India into a digital society for enabling futuristic technologies such as expansion of 4G, 5G, fiberstation, cloud computing, block chain, M2M, IoT, AI, and VR etc. Further, the year captured other significant developments such as the IBS deployment in government buildings for seamless network connectivity; development of online single window portal by states like Jharkhand, Haryana and Assam; Supreme Court’s verdict with respect to Aadhaar based KYC and EMF testing of Telecom Towers at specific sites and mergers; acquisitions and consolidations in the industry, to name a few.

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rests on the exponential rise in data traffic and harnessing emerging business opportunities.

Rapid expansions of 4G will drive the increase in tenancy ratio. Various emerging technologies such as internet of things, machine to machine communication, artificial intelligence and connected devices have led to an increased demand of a robust and scalable infrastructure.

“Going forward, the introduction of 5G services, along with the explosion of internetof-things/ everything, will bring the need for infrastructure sharing which is expected to emerge as a key trend. The next generation telecom infrastructure will be one of the core pillars in transformation of India into a digital economy. Telecommunication services is a catalyst to empower citizens by providing them with transparent governance and services (education, health, legal, financial and safety) at their fingertips,” adds Tilak Raj.

Venkat Krishnapur Vice President of Engineering and Managing Director, McAfee India

With the growing popularity of future technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, IoT and multi cloud, securityis becoming not only a technological asset but a necessity. Integrating security and establishing standards is the critical first step while deploying a new technology.

Cyber attackers will get smarter and use new techniques such as leveraging social engineering to mimic behaviour “5G is poised to go live in many cities across the United States and globally in 2019, and we expect next year to really showcase the economic power of the new mobile technology.

This is the year apps start to show their real value in the enterprise and industrial space with a host of new IoT, AR/VR, digital twins and connected-car applications coming to life,” comments Sriram T. V, Director of Consulting & Business Development at Juniper Networks, India and SAARC. Also, with 5G comes the rise in IoT and onthe-go video and content streaming. As digital subscriptions increase, service providers in India are focusing on digital subscriber lines and/ or Fiber-to-the-home access to deliver higher quality content to their customers. Partnerships with OTT players and content companies are also expected to grow as service providers in India continue to identify new revenue streams.

2018 also saw the smartphone industry maintaining double-digit growth fuelled by domestic consumption. Make in India uptake continued to be high in 2018, further cementing our position as world’s second largest producer of smartphones.

reduction of high cost resources.

OTHER TRENDS I. Open Source & an agile ecosystem

Rajarshi Bhattacharyya Country Head SUSE

However, as pointed out by Nitesh Gupta, Director, Optiemus Infracom, Design, Research and Development continue to be the weak spots, and should be a focus area for the industry. “We already have the talent pool to capture the R&D space, and it’s time to put serious investments behind it,” he says.

"There will be greater emphasis on fostering community engagement among developers and empowering collaboration, especially as open source continues to grow,” says Prabhakar Jayakumar, Country Director, DigitalOcean India.“Developers value connections, finding meaningful ways to contribute and building their skills, so community will be key in fulfilling their needs.

Kubernetes will continue trending upward as more people use the technology.

We see a huge opportunity in making Kubernetes easier and more approachable and that is going to be one of our focus areas. We also see that there are so many open source components that you can add to your Kubernetes deployments to make it easy to operate and scale your applications and we have plans to support those integrations in a simple, native way inside the product. " The more open a business ecosystem is,

Nitesh further adds, “Besides Security too needs to be a focus area in 2019 given the amount of sensitive data stored in smartphones. With more focus on external features like Cameras, Sensors and Design, customer privacy and data security seems to take a backseat, which is a disturbing reality.

This factor should be looked into.”

The growth of Indian IT Services companies will be impacted by lower deal sizes in digital technologies, cloud adoption and high competitive intensity from local as well as international players. While companies have increased spending on digital technologies and awarding new contracts, the overall IT budgets have moderated leading to lower incremental spends. Indian IT Services companies are reorienting their business models focusing more on high end services such as IT consulting & emerging technologies (digital) and have made considerable progress so far, though it currently lags international peers.

Margins will be supported by factors such as ability to modify cost structure with rational and variable salaries couples with gradual

the increased capabilities that have resulted from this have created significant demand in the market. In the business world, as voice evolves, there’s an increased interest in voice technologies in industries such as BFSI and hospitality – among others – and this will only increase as more use cases become apparent.

“Voice represents a great opportunity to deliver fabulous customer experiences, and Avaya has already started investing in and innovating with voice technologies so that companies can take advantage of this,” says Vishal of Avaya.

Along with voice technologies, Governments across the world are increasingly investing in strengthening and digitizing their emergency services. Government agencies today receive overwhelming numbers of emergency queries and calls, and responding to all of them in real-time is a growing challenge.

IT SERVICES INDUSTRY ICRA has a stable outlook on the Indian IT Services industry. ICRA expects most large IT services companies to maintain high dividend pay outs and share buybacks, as there are limited avenues for fund deployment.

The investment requirements (organic and inorganic) for Indian IT Services in the past have been moderate relative to internal cash flow generation. Majority of the acquisitions done by Indian IT Services players have been to acquire competencies rather than achieve scale and size.

Kiran Bhagwanani CEO of South Asia, Japan, NZ, Dimension Data

Anshul Rai CEO and Co-Founder, Happay the more seamlessly data can be leveraged within it to drive desired customer and citizen outcomes. The ability to track, collect and share data across dispersed systems is what allows companies to create customised solutions that target exact customer requirements. This open, extensible nature is vital within a nextgeneration platform. To deliver true value, organizations must be open, agile, integrated and future-proof. As the world continues transitioning to an API-based ecosystem, we become that much closer to eliminating a longstanding dependency on legacy hardware and hierarchal architecture.

II. Rise of voice technologies Over the past couple of years, voicebased technologies have gone mainstream.

Companies such as Amazon, Google and Apple are continuously investing in voice and speech recognition technologies and

III. Automation will be the secret to customer satisfaction In 2019, automation will be the differentiating factor among service providers.

This year service providers will fully adopt automated and virtualized cloud platforms that can deploy new services in months. Those who fail to implement automation will find themselves years behind competitors, as end users will find more agility and better service with those who embrace automation.

“Enterprise adoption of process automation technologies will continue with the same vigour as the technologies are expected to make the enterprises nimble, data-centric and quick to make decisions across geographies. More importantly, process automation will also help enterprises to go beyond the simple operational and efficiency gains made with basic automation to tap new revenue opportunities,” says Shailesh Kumar Dave – Vice President, ManageEngine, a division of Zoho Corp.

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CyberArk focuses on Privilege Access Accounts It is true that technology has evolved manifold. Previously, enterprises were the early adopters of latest technologies, but these days even SMEs are not lagging behind. Organizations are adopting latest technologies as it helps in faster go-to-market and improve customer experience. But as technology evolves, it gives greater attack area for cybercriminals too.

“Over the last three years technology has leapfrogged as there have been a lot of happenings around Cloud. Around three years back, people started adopting the Cloud. Initially, technologies are adopted more at an enterprise level, but eventually SMEs start adopting them quickly because everybody sees a value in using technology as time-to-market becomes faster and customer experience improves. Also, the ecommerce companies have started using a very disruptive technology, so the next phase that has come in is automation. Now the moment you have so many engines running at different sides, there will be gaps. That is when cybercriminals or the attackers take advantage of. The next add on was IoT. So when technology evolves and the attack surface increases drastically, security vendors are not able to catch up.

These trends will keep evolving as long as we start doing something disruptive and it is going to have that effect. This is going to be a trend which will continue for many years and the more disruption technology brings in the spikes are going to be even more,” explains Rohan Vaidya, Regional Director of Sales, India, CyberArk Software.

PRIVILEGE ACCESS ACCOUNTS The major focus of CyberArk is managing the privilege access accounts. The company secures the password of any IPbased devices, records the activities of an IT administrator and also analyzes the activities of the administrator.

“CyberArk has been in business for 20 years with a focus on managing the Privilege Access Accounts. In any IP device, we scan the passwords or the SSH keys. So, we take those keys and vault it so that an administrator need not remember the passwords and you will not be able to view the thousand passwords any longer.

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In a chat with VARINDIA, ROHAN VAIDYA, Regional Director of Sales, India, CyberArk Software, discusses about the technology landscape, evolution of cyber threats and how CyberArk provides protection to its customers -

There is a concept called jump server. So instead of going from point A to B, we have an interface in between which is a CyberArk interface. So, one has to go through the interface. It identifies the administrator; he is L1 and has access to this 10 servers. His role and responsibilities to these 10 servers are defined. All the activities of an administrator get recorded. It has multiple searches and I can search on time or command base in terms of certain activities that are done.

"When technology evolves and the attack surface increases drastically, security vendors are not able to catch up. These trends will keep evolving as long as we start doing something disruptive and it is going to have that effect"

The third part is the weakest link which is always the human being in every technology and you may have internal or external threats.

As an administrator, you have keys to the IT kingdom, so why not monitor these guys on their user behaviour. We have something called privilege third analytics, the tool monitors in two parts. One, it monitors its human users, who are the administrators who log in through CyberArk. It learns on its own terms, the different sites the administer visits, what tools are used, and then if there is any abnormality it raises an alarm.

The other is a correlation factor which you do where you have the active directory, network and SIEM. If a customer has an SIEM already configured into the system, we can do a correlation of the data logs which are being exchanged and can say there is an attack in progress. In an attack chain, if the malware or the insider or the external is trying to do a lateral movement, he may pass through most of the security parameters because he masqueraded as an administrator.

The software will start correlating three or four data points and analyze why the person is moving from server to server or why he is getting into a firewall when he is not supposed to do, or why is he changing certain settings. So, we are the last line of defence when it comes to protect the privilege access management,” he says.

VAR MOBILITY

Global OnePlus unveils 6T McLaren edition OPPO launches R15 Pro with an AI- HMD introduces Nokia to celebrate its 5th Anniversary enhanced camera OnePlus has unveiled that powers the OnePlus OPPO has announced 106 feature the new OnePlus 6T 6T is topped with a new the launch of its latest R McLaren Edition. The addition: Warp Charge 30. series product – OPPO phone company announced that The OnePlus 6T R15 Pro. After recently launching R17 Pro in December 2018, the R15 Pro comes with OPPO’s latest breakthrough which is a 6.28-inch and a 19:9 full screen with ultrawide visual field. Priced at Rs.25,990, the smartphone will be exclusively available on Amazon.in from 9th January,2019 onwards.

The R15 Pro comes with a host of features such as a new flagship sensor, the IMX519 which has been customized by OPPO for better portrait photography. It is also one of the first devices to be water resistant along with AI Scene Recognition technology which can also be referred to as a photography technique consultant. The smartphone has a 20MP + 16MP dual rear camera and for selfies, users get a

20MP front-facing camera with a new and unique 3D lighting technique for artistic portraits.

Adhering to OPPO’s design philosophy of creating top of the line devices, OPPO has made another breakthrough which will help to get a bigger and broader view.

The OPPO R15 Pro is equipped with a 6.28-inch and a 19:9 full screen with ultra-wide visual field.

Huawei launches HUAWEI Y9 2019 in India, priced at Rs.15, 990/Huawei Consumer Business Group India has

craftsmanship that boasts of high durability.

announced the launch of HUAWEI Y9 2019, its latest high-tech offering for the ultimate entertainment experience. With Huawei’s focus on premium quality and superior experience, the "Entry-level Flagship Phone" Y9 2019 features a 6.5" screen, 3D curved design, powerful battery, advanced quad camera and flagship-level

Huawei’s devices have been awarded globally for providing the highest level of quality and endurance and with the launch of HUAWEI Y9 2019, the company further aims not only to offer distinctive user experience but also offer consumers the reliability and durability that one finds in flagship smartphones.

HMD Global, the home of Nokia phones, has announced an addition to its feature phone portfolio in India – Nokia 106. Featuring incredible battery life, simplicity and accessible price point, the phone offers the reassurance and reliability expected from a Nokia phone.

Ajey Mehta, VicePresident & Country Head – India, HMD Global, said, “India is an important feature phone market.

Consumers here seek outstanding battery life, a simple-to-use interface, and great durability from a trusted brand like Nokia. Nokia phones are synonymous with these qualities and we’re delighted to introduce the Nokia 106 to our feature phone portfolio and hope to continue to drive connectivity for millions of consumers here.”

The Nokia 106 features incredible battery life enabling user to talk from sunrise to sunset on a single charge. With up to 15.7 hours talk-time and up to 21 days’ standby time, it won’t let the user down.

The Nokia 106 offers an iconic Nokia feature phone design in a tough polycarbonate body. Its inherent colouring means the colour runs through the material, which makes scratches less detectable.

Thanks to the contoured design, the Nokia 106 fits perfectly in your hand.

Featuring all your everyday essentials, it comes with the classic Snake Xenzia game and can store your entire address book with space to hold up to 2,000 contacts.

Nokia 106 comes in Dark Grey and is available in India at a recommended best buy price of Rs.1,299 across top mobile retailers in the country as well as on Nokia.com/phones.

the OnePlus 6T McLaren E d i t i o n would retail at Rs.50,999 and would be OnePlus’ fastest handset yet with an incredible combination of 10GB RAM, 256GB storage and OnePlus’ new charging technology, WARP Charge 30.

The OnePlus 6T McLaren edition is a harmonious combination of speed, technology, and beauty. The back cover of the OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition will feature a U-shaped papaya orange design, a signature McLaren colour inspired by the speed of light. The same 3,700mAh battery

McLaren will exclusively be sold in a special sale on 13th December, 2018 at the OnePlus Experience Store in Connaught Place, New Delhi. This is the third OnePlus Experience Store in India. The new offline store is expected to be a hub for community members to engage with the brand and experience everything OnePlus – from device to accessories.

Lava debuts Z91 smartphone with Face Unlock feature at Rs.7,999/LAVA International is offering Z91 at an exclusive price of Rs.7,999/-. The Z91 is a perfect amalgamation of design and new technologies, comes packed with innovative features including face recognition which unlocks the phone by scanning user’s face within 0.7 seconds.

The Lava Z91 looks stunning with its striking blue colour, 18:9 wide-screen display and an exceptional glass finish. Dual-SIM LAVA Z91 sports an impressive design with a 5.7-inch HD+ display (18:9) resolution, 3GB RAM, Fingerprint Sensor, 2.5D curved design, very sleek body (7.7mm thick), yet providing convenient onehand navigation.

Z91’s is also equipped with tough and scratchresistant screen, making

this device more powerful and reliable. The phone is devised with a 3,000mAh battery, making it stand for its incredible battery backup and can be used up to 24 hours, through a single charge.

The glass finish device is powered by Mediatek Processor – coupled with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage.

www.varindia.com January 2019

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TECNO to continue its focus on offline channel With a strong focus on offline channel and a belief in the multibrand strategy, TECNO aims to become the desired brand for all. Its brand philosophy - “Think Globally Act Locally” inspires the company to make technology accessible to all. In a chat with VARINDIA, ARIJEET TALAPATRA, CEO, TRANSSION INDIA, talks about the trends for 2019, its channel strategy and service support

The India smartphone market landscape is continuously undergoing disruption with the advent of latest technologies. At present, the market is driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and it is becoming a must-have feature for every smartphone. This feature is now available in the premium segment phones, but it will soon be an important feature in the budget phone segment as well. Another technology soon to influence the market is Augmented Reality (AR) which will provide real-life virtual experiences on-screen to users. The major trend of 2019 will be dual camera setup for smartphones.

“In 2019, AI-enabled cameras will take the driver's seat in India’s vibrant market – a market that is amplifying its focus towards improving smartphone camera technology. According to our study, Indian consumers prefer pictures that are brighter, smoother and incredibly reflective of the true Indian skin tone. AI-enabled cameras will soon become a “must-have” feature in the mid-range and under 10K segments. Artificial Intelligenceled camera features like Auto-Scene detection, beauty mode, and face unlock will witness further refinement, thus boosting their efficiency. 2019 will go beyond dual camera setup and will have multiple camera module as the key trend to look out for. In terms of price points, 7-15K segment of smartphones will contribute the highest that smartphone players will place their bets on,” says Arijeet Talapatra, CEO, TRANSSION India.

CHANNEL STRATEGY

The offline brand of TRANSSION, TECNO will continue to focus on offline channel and its activities will center around building a strong relation with its distributors and retailers.

“TECNO is an offline-focused brand and is available across 35,000 retail touch points across India. Our trade practices are very strong, which lead to delight of the partners. We focus our activities with a quick turnaround of stocks for every distributor as well as retailers which ensure a stronger relationship with us. We will continue to focus our efforts majorly towards the offline channel,” reveals Arijeet.

Focusing on its brand philosophy “Think Globally Act Locally”, TECNO aims to become a desired brand across segments. Further explaining, he says, “We, at TRANSSION, believe in Multi-brand strategy by offering eclectic product offerings based on the extensive market insight and consumer segmentation which caters to the lowest strata of users experiencing a smartphone for the first time as well as giving the best of experience to users wanting to move up towards a premium segment.

We are a committed player with a vision of becoming the preferred brand across segments by designing products and offerings that complement the consumer’s lifestyle and make technology innovation affordable. Our brand philosophy is “Think Globally Act Locally”. We are present across offline channel with brands like itel, and Tecno through a robust pan-India

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presence with a deep distribution network of one lakh-plus retailers and 3,000-plus channel partners. Also, we have an online-focused brand which is Infinix available via Flipkart.”

SERVICE SUPPORT

Expanded widely across countries, Carlcare is the after-sales service brand of TRANSSION. There are more than 900 service centers in India and it is an important part of the company’s offline channel strategy as it provides better service to customers. In order to serve customers better, TECNO has come up with the promise of “111” which comprises free replacement, one-time screen replacement and extended warranty.

“Carlcare is our global after-sales service brand of TRANSSION. Built with global talents, Carlcare management and technical team together with third-party suppliers comprised more than 1,200 industry experts, with 1,000+ service centers in over 40 countries in Africa, Middle East and Southeast Asia. In India, we have 990+ franchisee service touch points of Carlcare. COCO service centers are an important part of our offline channels to provide our consumers better services in the process of purchase and experience TECNO products. Currently, we have two company-owned service centers, one in Noida and the second in Mumbai.

We’ll continue to enhance this part.

“Also, we were first in the industry to introduce beyond the standard warranty and came out with a brand promise of ‘111’. Any consumer who buys TECNO smartphones gets an advantage of 100 days’ free replacement, one-time screen replacement and one-month extended warranty,” says Arijeet.

Aparna Mullick aparna@varindia.com

www.varindia.com December 2018

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