Posts Tagged ‘India’
Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise, who is in India to promote the fourth installment of his “Mission Impossible” franchise, has squeezed in a special visit on his chock-a-block itinerary — the Taj Mahal in Agra. And guess who accompanied him in this mission? Co-star Anil Kapoor.
Cruise landed in Delhi early Saturday and headed straight to the Leela Palace, Chanakyapuri. He stayed at the hotel’s exquisite Maharaja suite, which has a personal gym, jacuzzi and is one of the most expensive suites in the country, said sources.
From there, the 49-year-old left for Agra with his “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol” co-star Anil Kapoor. The international star would be staying in Oberoi Amar Villas in the Taj city.
Kapoor is also set to co-host a party for Cruise along with Viacom 18 in Mumbai Saturday night.
The bash would be a private 150-guest affair at the Taj Rooftop, Colaba. However, some Bollywood’s A-listers like Ajay Devgn, Akshay Kumar, Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan would not be seen at the bash as they are either out of town or have expressed their inability to join in.
The only Khan superstar at the bash would be Aamir.
“We had originally planned to invite 200 guests. That’s now been narrowed down to 150,” says a source.
“Tom is a really cool guy. When Anil asked him whom he’d like to meet from Bollywood and from other walks of life he said, ‘No one and everyone’. Tom says he’s on a mission to promote ‘Mission Impossible’.
“So for him, the fan interaction is the most important part of his itinerary. The only desire he expressed for his India visit was to visit the Taj Mahal,” he added.
The guest list also includes names like Mukesh and Neeta Ambani, the Godrejs, Birlas, the Bachchans (minus Aishwarya), Aamir Khan, Katrina Kaif and Karan Johar.
“In Mumbai, Kapoor is expected to whisk Tom for a brief visit to see his home and meet his family — again Tom’s wish. Then, Tom checks into his hotel, prepares for the party which is expected to last for no more than two hours. He says he wants to be fresh for the fan interaction on Sunday,” the source added.
Cruise, who features as intelligence agent Ethan Hunt in the popular film franchise, is hosting a special screening for 1,500 fans two weeks before the film’s worldwide release Dec 21.
It’s official now! After Aircel announced that it will launch the much-awaited Apple’s iPhone 4S on November 25, the company has now said that the pre-orders for the iPhone 4S will begin from November 18. The recent post related to the iPhone 4S announcement on the Facebook page of Aircel says, “Aircel is bringing iPhone 4S to India on Nov 25. PRE-ORDER from Nov 18. Get more details here : http://www.aircel.com/iPhone4S .”
Besides, the information on Aircel’s website reads, “Coming on Nov. 25th, 2011 to an Aircel store near you. Look out for our attractive plans! Secure your iPhone 4S in advance. Pre-ordering starts on Nov. 18th, 2011.”
According to sources, the iPhone 4S will be comparatively expensive and will start from close to Rs 40,000 for the 16GB model and cross Rs 50,000 for the high-end 64GB model.
via Aircel: iPhone 4S pre-orders to begin from Nov 18 – Tech News – IBNLive.
Reliance Communications (Rcom) on Monday said the company would welcome the entry of Reliance Industries into the telecom sector. “If there is a responsible player going to expand the data pie, it’s a very good news,” Syed Safawi, president & chief executive of RCom’s wireless business unit said.
He also said RCom was talking to other telecom companies to offer its telecom towers on lease. He, however, did not elaborate on the companies in a conference call with analysts.
While its peers reported muted traffic/revenue growth numbers due to a seasonally weak quarter, RCom registered a 2.1 per cent and 1.6 per cent sequential growth in wireless revenue and traffic.
The company said it would be able to maintain revenues per minute at 44-45p on the back of reducing free minutes on the network and focusing on paid minutes. The company is after the high margin, non-voice segment, now a fifth of revenues, as well as third-generation (3G) services to improve average revenue per user. It has 2.1 million active 3G users.
read more at BS
- The much-awaited Apple’s iPhone 4S is reportedly likely to land in India on November 25. Aircel, one of the carriers in India, has announced that it will bring the iPhone 4S soon to India on its Facebook page. The post (along with the photograph of the phone) on the Aircel’s Facebook page reads as, “Aircel brings iPhone 4S to India…launch details coming soon!”
- There is no official announcement about the launching date, but there are speculations that the phone is expected to be launched in the fourth week of November. Following this, the phone is rumored to be launched on November 24. And if rumours are to be believed, then our observation says that the launching date could be November 25.
- According to our observation, Apple, this year, had always chosen Friday as the day to launch its products in the Indian market. Firstly, the company launched Apple’s first generation iPad in India on January 28 (Friday). It was followed by the launch of iPad 2 on April 29 (Friday) and iPhone 4 on May 27
- It’s the latest buzz word in mobile communications. Machine-to-Machine or M2M is referred to as a technology that enables both wireless and wired systems to communicate with a host of devices and applications, thereby making sense of the information relayed. This is accomplished through the use of telemetry, which is the language machines use when communicating with each other.
- With a 850 million cellphone customer-base and home to some of the largest telcos in the world, new areas are opening up in the Indian telecom sector. Telit Communications, recently made its foray in the country by opening its India operations. The company is betting on the Indian M2M market and will market M2M modules which enable machines, devices and vehicles to communicate via wireless networks. Apart from telecom, M2M is expected to impact various verticals like automotive telematics, healthcare, transportation and logistics, manufacturing, point of sale, retail and other vertical. However, in the medium term beyond utilities and finance verticals, it is expected to grow in the tracking and security segments. A main draw in the M2M space is the 25 billion IP-connected devices by 2015, which has made companies like Cisco to jump into the M2M fray.
- According to the independent wireless analyst firm Berg Insight, the number of M2M connections will grow to 187 million by 2014. Additionally, a study from the E-Plus Group showed that in 2010, 2.3 million M2M SIM-cards were available in the German market and this is slated to reach over 5 million SIM-cards in 2013.
- Motorola Razr , which was unveiled last month during an event, is set to come to India in this month. A spokesperson of the company who revealed this to The Mobile Indian, however, did not confirm any particular date.
- Sporting a mere 7.1 mm thickness, Motorola Razr features a dual-core processor and full HD recording capable camera. Most likely the Motorola Razr will be the first 4G LTE supporting Android smartphone for India unless Motorola brings its 3G version. Notably, India will see the 4G LTE roll out sometime next year.
- Motorola Razr smartphone comes with a massive 4.3 inch Super Amoled display and supports qHD 960×540 pixel resolution. The first of its kind display supporting higher resolution certainly has raised expectations of many. The slim 7.1 mm razor like profile has Kevlar plastic built body to offer stylish and premium look.
- Under the slim and strong Kevlar body, Razr packs a dual-core 1.2 GHz processor paired with 1 GB RAM. That means hardware is good enough to play your latest Android games and browse the web effortlessly. By default, the Razr will come with Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread and would be upgradable to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich whenever it is released.
- One of the pain points of Motorola has been the software updates but with recent acquisition by Google, that might be taken care of. Bootloader of this smartphone won’t be unlocked so developers can create some splendid applications.
- Shutterbugs are in for a treat with 8 megapixel camera with LED flash that will allow recording full 1080p HD video and capture high quality images using the image stabilisation technology. This smartphone also has a front facing HD camera for video calling and chat.
Tags: 3g, 4G, 4g handset, dual core, India, motorola, motorola 4g, motorola razr, news, razr, smartphone, technology
- Gone are the days when Indian users opted for Nokia mobile phones for its durability. According to a recent survey, many Indians today change their device in less than two years so that they can use new applications.
- The survey was conducted by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) which quizzed 1,370 respondents in the age group of 20 to 30 years. Nearly 39 per cent of them said they switch to a new phone in less than two years for new applications.
- The findings suggest that friends are the single most important source of information while purchasing a handset. Thirty nine per cent of the respondents said they were influenced by brand name the first time they bought a handset, 17 per cent were influenced by price, and 10 per cent were influenced by the availability of the latest model. But for the second purchase, quality ranked on top for 15 per cent of the respondents.
- The survey also said applications, Bluetooth, GPRS, built-in camera, FM radio, MP3 player, video recording and speaker phone are key factors influencing purchase among young mobile phone users who are inclined towards social networking, music, games, news, surfing the net, chatting with friends and family, and even checking their bank balance on their handsets.
- Notably, India now ranks as the second fastest growing telecom market in the world after China with 59.1 crore users in urban areas and 30.1 crore in rural. Among manufacturers, Nokia remains a leader with 39 per cent market share followed by Samsung with 17.2 per cent and Micromax 6.9 per cent — the rest being split among Blackberry, LG, G Five, Karbonn, Spice, Maxx, Sony Ericsson and others.
- Tele-density in urban areas is 65.91 per cent and in rural areas it is 34.09 per cent. The next phase of growth will come from rural markets, said ASSOCHAM, adding that the introduction of dual SIM technology has been a game-changer for the handset market.
- Demand of mobile handsets in the country is expected to reach 350 million units per annum by 2020, says a study by industry body FICCI with market analyst firm Ernst and Young (E&Y)
- India is the world”s second-largest telecom market after China, with the total wireless subscriber base crossing 850 million at the end of June, 2011. By 2020, the handset demand is projected to reach 350 million a year,” the study said. At present, Indian mobile handset market is estimated to be in around 130 million handsets per annum.
- It added that 505 million handsets are estimated to be manufactured in India, during the same year. The study has found that average selling price (ASP) of handsets in the country is estimated to increase to Rs 2,950 by 2020 as compared to Rs 2,300 in 2010.
- In India, handsets are categorised as high, medium, low, and ultra low cost ASP devices. The medium ASP segment is likely to be the fastest growing segment in terms of volume,” Prashant Singhal, Telecom Industry Leader, E&Y, said. He added that affordability of feature-rich handsets is also expected to be a key enabler of handset adoption.
- The study sees untapped rural market to provide handset players the next phase of growth. The number of 3G subscribers expected to cross 300 million by 2020, fuelling the growth of 3G-enabled handsets. A favourable policy and regulatory initiative conducive for handset manufacturing in India is expected to drive sustainable growth in this segment,” the statement said.
- Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries will soon expand 4G services in India, according to an ET report. This includes offering 4G enabled data cards and providing tablets at price as low as Rs. 3000. The company plans to start rolling out 4 G services by middle of 2012.
- RIL is trying to woo the young customers with news games and applivcationa and its dealwith Walt Disney is already in the finals stage. It plans to provide data connectivity with speeds of 50-100 mbps, which is much faster than 3G services currently on offer, at cheaper prices.
- The report says the company adopted the similar strategy in 2003 also when it succeeded in taking mobile telephony to the masses with its “Monsoon Hungama” handsets at Rs 501, helping it win 1 million customers in just 10 days. Reliance Infocom, the telecom arm of the undivided Reliance Group, began its services on December 28, 2002, the birthday of the group’s founder Dhirubhai Ambani.
- An industry executive confided in ET that RIL may focus on three to four models, all of which are likely to be priced between Rs 3000 to Rs 8000 and that the entry-level tablets may have Google’s android operating system. Industry executives also confirmed that RIL was not considering UK-based Datawind, which recently launched the world’s cheapest tablet – Aakash – priced at $35 or Rs 1,750 for students with the Indian government sourcing these device at Rs 2,256.
- Research In Motion, the maker of BlackBerry devices, on Thursday said that it was open to look at the possibility of setting up regional data centres to avoid a repeat of the outage that affected more than 70 million subscribers across the world.
- Speaking to Indian media via tele-conference, Mr Patrick Spence, Senior Vice-President and Managing Director, Global Sales & Regional Marketing, RIM, said, “Our immediate focus is on getting back the services to where we would like it to be. We will leave no stone unturned to make sure that this does not repeat. All options, including setting up network architecture with regional hubs, are on the table. If that makes sense, we will do it.” Indian authorities have been asking RIM to set up local servers for security monitoring purpose but so far the company has been unwilling to do so.
- Globally, RIM has come under sever criticism for having a centralised architecture because of which a snag at its UK centre disrupted services across the world.
- Although the RIM executive did not give any specific measures that the company will take to pacify angry customers, Mr Spence said that RIM will look at a number of issues including communications with customers, demands for compensation from operators and its architecture, once the services are fully back to normal. He said that although data were flowing normally, the company was monitoring the situation for one more day to make sure that the system was fully back on track.
- Microsoft is targeting revenue of $400 million from its Indian operations in its FY2011-12 (August to July), a 30 percent growth over the last fiscal.
- The software major expects one-third of the revenue to come from the cloud business which in the past 12 months contributed only around 5 percent to its overall revenue.
- Microsoft has laid out an aggressive strategy which includes restructuring its entire partner organization by making it more linear and creating dedicated account management teams to drive its cloud business.
- The company has created separate teams and appointed regional business development managers (BDMs) for the north (including east), south and west (including central) regions. The regional managers have been empowered to identify their own focus areas and go-to-market for the cloud business. In addition, Microsoft has divided its cloud business into two teams—one for the mid-to-large enterprise segment and the other for SMBs. It has also created a team of cloud specialists who would help both customers and partners in deploying hybrid cloud services.
- Partners have welcomed these changes. “Earlier, it was difficult for us to approach executives at Microsoft for any cloud-related difficulty. The cloud BDMs would now help us in drafting business plans and developing a joint go-to-market strategy,” said MP Kini, CEO, Kinfotech, a Bengaluru-based Microsoft partner.
Data Center Outsourcing to reach $8b: Cloud is yet to displace existing options
Posted on: November 11, 2011
- Global market investment in outsourcing is set to rise to $8bn in 2012 for many users of data center services found the Data Center Industry Census 2011.
- A substantial proportion of racks are and will be outsourced found the new report “Technology Cycles and Cloud”, the latest in the series based on the world’s largest survey of the data center industry.
- In quantitative terms, the sample indicates the USA is the largest market with 210,000 racks outsourced either to third party suppliers or to other offices.
- However, there is enormous variation in the proportion of outsourced racks from region to region; from as little as 3% in the Middle East, to as much as 28% in China and 30% in India.
- Nick Parfitt, a researcher at DatacenterDynamics said: It is evident that outsourcing fulfils different roles in the evolution of markets; as an entry point for organisations which have not yet evolved the capacity requirement to operate their own environments, or as an exit point in developed markets where the pace of increased IT requirements has exceeded in-house capacity.
- With Madhya Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir entering into a tie-up for providing e-governance, Microsoft is trying to push the Central government to frame a policy in this regard so that more and more states can offer services through e-governance platform.
- Microsoft India is also exploring possibilities in the health sector in Madhya Pradesh. We have spoken to Union IT ministry and we want states to work on cloud platform, as Madhya Pradesh is working for Jammu and Kashmir. MP is providing data, network and server for J&K government to develop e-governance facilities at various centres. This way J&K is able to save funds and speed up its service facilities,” Pratik Mehta, director public sector Microsoft Corporation (India) Pvt Ltd told Business Standard here. After initial failures during previous Digvijay Singh-led Congress government, Microsoft India has made strategic investment in the state for unknown sum in various sectors.
- We want the Central government set up application factory wherein various e-governance models of various states can be replicated to provide maximum benefits to citizens. This would not only save cost but will also help government to reach common masses in a better way,” he added.
- Microsoft has covered a fair share on cloud computing platform in schools and colleges through its Live@edu project and Project Shiksha. The Live@edu project, on one hand, connects alumnae of various colleges and schools, project Shiksha is aimed at imparting training for school teachers on short terms basis in partnership with the state government. We have trained as many as 31000 school teachers by using state government infrastructure,” Irina Ghose, Director Education Microsoft told BS. Using Microsoft software and operating platforms, state government has launched its various projects like e-districts to reach common masses through digital route. However digitization of land records is the biggest issue for the government.
- By using cloud computing platform, governments can slash their funds and offer maximum benefits. As Madhya Pradesh is providing support for J&K citizens in terms of e-governance, state government can offer more in health sector, sadly there is no IT policy for health sector,” Mehta added.
- Ericsson in statement issued on Friday revealed that it has signed a deal to introduce 4G mobile broadband technology in India. The company, however did not divulge the name of the customer.
- With this deal, Ericsson, a leader in mobile broadband space and global advocate of LTE technology will revolutionise India wireless broadband space broadband”, the statement said.
- It said LTE will be main driver for innovations in years to come enabling the next Google, Facebook or iPhone and opening doors to possibilities in number of new areas like utilities, health, transport and media. Ericsson will hold a press conference on October 11 in New Delhi to give more details about the deal.
- Wednesday’s launch of the Aakash – which means “sky” in Hindi – is designed to boost e-learning to help India solve its education problems and bridge the digital divide that sees Asia’s third-largest economy lag behind its emerging market peers in internet access. The rich have access to the digital world; the poor and ordinary have been excluded. Aakash will end that digital divide,” said Kapil Sibal, the education minister, who came up with the idea for an ultra-low-cost tablet.
- The Indian government put out a tender for the tablet to be developed, and plans to sell 100,000 units of the finished product to students in secondary schools for $35. Aakash has the same sized screen as the 7-inch Amazon Kindle Fire, which launched last week to great fanfare for $199, but which has less sophisticated features. Meanwhile, consumers will be able to buy a retail version for about $60.
- The cut-price laptop will further sideline the non-profit One Laptop Per Child project, set up by MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte, which has been aiming to bring $100 laptops to children in poor countries. The OLPC foundation failed to reach the $100 price tag, with machines selling for just over $200. They have seen orders from governments in Latin America and Africa, with around 2m machines distributed. However, they had not had a good response from the Indian authorities.
India’s second largest Information Technology services firm Infosys has managed to bag the Rs 700-750 crore financial services systems integrator contract from the Department of Posts (DoP). This is the second contract from the department for Infosys.
Infosys, said sources, has emerged as the lowest bidder for the contract. Other vendors in the fray includes India’s largest software exporter Tata Consultancy Services and global services giant HP.
A postal department official confirmed the development. Infosys top management declined to comment because the company is observing a silent period before announcing its second quarter results on October 12.
The contract is part of the government’s postal department modernisation project. The financial services contract is among the eight that the department is outsourcing.
Earlier this year, Infosys had also managed to bag the ‘rural information and communications technology (ICT) system integrator (SI)’ contract, worth Rs 100 crore.
As part of the new project, Infosys would help with postal banking and insurance solutions, enabling the department to perform ‘anytime, anywhere’ banking. In August 2010, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs had approved the India Post Modernisation, IT modernisation project with a total outlay of Rs 1,877.2 crore. India Posts’ IT modernisation initiative is expected to create opportunities of Rs 5,000-crore for IT services and hardware companies.
Besides the financial services SI, other contracts include
- Data centre facility
- Network integrator
- Mail operations
- Hardware and change management.
The bidding process for DoP’s ‘core system integrator’ contract is on. This is touted as the largest of the eight contracts. The financial outlay of the project could not be confirmed.
Tags: department of posts, DOP, ICT, India, infosys, news, postal, si, system integrator, technology, Technology News
- As the government is leaving no stone unturned to accomplish its ambitious e-governance program, Minister for Communications and IT Kapil Sibal said there is a need for state governments and other departments to coordinate with the Centre to facilitate social participation in e-governance initiative.
- Speaking at an industry event in New Delhi today, Sibal said social inclusion is important. “Disempowerment needs to be addressed, which is in fact the main challenge,” he told the gathering. “There is a paradigm shift in communications technologies today and we are on the verge of creating a new world,” he stressed.
- The government, however, is making efforts to bring Electronic Services Delivery (ESD) Bill. All the states will be mandated to make the public services available to citizens electronically within five years. Sibal said he’s optimistic about tabling the ESD Bill in next Parliamentary session. We need a proper mechanism to eliminate human errors and corruption. With e-governance, human interface will be eliminated,” he said. Sibal also said that through this system, strong action will be taken against those who involve in corruption.
- Rs 30,000 crore is available with USO fund and the government is looking to utilize it for creation of fiber infrastructure. “High quality software and a robust IT industry is needed to facilitate fiber optic network to deliver public services in the country,” Sibal said.
- Planning Commission has already said that post offices will have ATMs to facilitate money transfer. The digitization of data including land records is important, believes Sibal.
Tags: ATM, bill, e-governance, electronic service delivery, ESD, fiber optic, India, new delhi, news, technology
- Huawei Technologies Co., the Chinese maker of telecommunication equipment, Wednesday launched in India its business unit that sells networking products to non-telecom customers.
- Huawei’s move in India comes while its traditional clients–telecom service providers–are slowing expansion following allegations of corruption in the sector and a decline in monthly additions to the number of telephone users.
- The company expects the newly launched enterprise unit to post about $1 billion of annual revenue in India by 2015, accounting for a quarter of its total revenue from the country at that time, Eric Yu, president of the division at Huawei Telecommunications India Pvt. Ltd., said.
- Huawei posted about $1.50 billion revenue from India in 2010.
- Enterprise business accounted for 8% of Huawei’s $28 billion global revenue in 2010. It is aiming for the unit to record $15 billion by 2015. In India, Huawei is planning to tie up with system integration companies like Wipro Ltd. and AGC Networks Ltd. to sell network-based products to clients in the government, power, transport, banking and Internet sectors. Cisco Systems Inc. is the market leader for network products.
- In India’s telecom gear market, Huawei competes with other Chinese vendors such as ZTE Corp. and European companies like Nokia Siemens Networks. It has made significant inroads in the country, offering products and services which are about a third cheaper than most global competitors. The company had in December committed $2 billion of investments in India over five years, including to set up a research and development center.
- The tablet market in India is growing at reasonable pace despite being in fledgling stage. According to a CyberMedia research nearly 1,58,000 media tablets were sold (shipped) in the nine months ended June 30, 2011in the country. The research says split between 3G and WiFi models was in the proportion 70:30.
- The report also says Samsung used a tactical price drop to emerge the bestselling Tablet brand in India during the three quarters ended June 2011. Olivepad launched the first media tablet in India in July 2010. The first major international brand to launch followed in October 2010 – the Samsung Galaxy Tab. The Apple iPad, the most well recognized tablet, arrived in India only in January 2011.
- Tablets provide touch based user experience with a convenient screen size for web surfing, content consumption and entertainment. Moreover, portability, ease of use and wireless connectivity ”on-the-go’ make the tablet an even more attractive buy”, stated Anirban Banerjee, Associate Vice President, Research and Advisory Services, CyberMedia Research.
- Currently, the India media tablets market has many more models available with a range of features and at a variety of price points, compared to six months ago. However, for the Tablet to become a common man’s device, usage tariffs for high speed data services need to be brought down even further along with useful and relevant content for the Indian consumer.
Tags: 3g, cyber media, India, indian media market, news, samsung, tablet, tablet pc, technology, wifi
Re-Strategising for More Thorough Coverage, Lower Cost
- When asked about their IT security strategy, respondents believe that the top two areas of improvement by far are comprehensiveness of coverage and cost of their IT security implementation. They want coverage to be extended beyond the core network perimeter to areas like mobile endpoints and processes, and they want security-related costs to be reduced. Of the seven markets surveyed, Indian respondents ranked comprehensiveness of coverage as their no.1 priority (63%), followed by cost effectiveness (41%).
- There are several drivers for the strategy changes. Heading the list are technologies under rapid adoption in India, including cloud computing (36% of respondents named it as the most important driver) and virtualisation (16%). Other influences shaping IT security strategy are the emergence of more sophisticated threats and attacks (15%), user-led IT (14%) and mobility (11%).
Enterprises Responding Faster to Changing Trends
- In line with fast evolving trends, many organisations are assessing their IT security strategy frequently. As many as 80% of the respondents from India have conducted a full reappraisal of their information security strategy in the last 12 months.
- In fact, the survey unveiled that as many as 85% of respondents are concerned about their firms’ ability to secure corporate data in this new user-led IT environment, where individual users, rather than enterprises, define the preferred IT practices and technologies they wish to use. South Korean and Indian organisations are the most worried (both 94%) by this IT consumerisation. Japan is the least worried, but even there, almost two thirds of the respondents (63%) say they are concerned.
Inadequate Security for Personal Mobile Devices
- Across the sample, 94% of respondents say that they have a mobile security strategy defined. Hong Kong and Taiwan are the most advanced markets in this area, both at 98% followed by India at 96%.
- However, results indicate that most companies are not confident of or do not have the means to secure personal mobile devices: 67% of respondents say they only allow the use of corporate mobile devices onto which security policies can be directly enforced. Twenty six percent of enterprises place responsibility for securing personal mobile endpoints directly with the users/owners of those devices − a dangerous practice.
Wireless Networks: The Greatest Vulnerability
- When asked about which parts of their IT infrastructure are vulnerable from a security standpoint, wireless networks are named most frequently (quoted by 59% of the respondents). In terms of severity of risk, wireless networks are also rated highest, ahead of endpoints (ranked 2nd) and databases (3rd). Wireless networks are seen as particularly vulnerable in Japan, with 86% of that country’s respondents ranking it as their top threat, ahead of South Korea (61%) and Hong Kong (55%).
Migration to Application Aware and XML Firewalls has Started
- Today’s security threats are no longer port-based and can slip into enterprise networks through applications. With application awareness and control capabilities underpinning the emergence of ‘next-generation’ firewalls and the death of traditional firewalling solutions, 42% of the respondents are now using, or plan to use, a firewall with application control features. Specialised Web application and XML firewalls are also being adopted in significant numbers, with 45% of the overall sample now using, or planning to use, this technology to secure Web-based applications.
- Singapore shows the highest rate of ‘next generation’ firewall adoption with 52% of its sample using this technology. India and South Korea follow closely, tying at 48%.
- China and Taiwan are the largest adopters of Web application /XML firewalls, with 61% and 48% of their samples, respectively. India is 3rd with 44%.
Network Security Consolidation Gathering Momentum
- To date, almost three quarters (71%) of respondents have consolidated security elements to take advantage of tighter security, simplified management and lower cost, and 90% of them say that they will continue consolidating security over the next 12 months.
- Twenty-six percent of the sampled organisations plan to embark on a network security consolidation exercise for the first time in the next 12 months. Only 3% of the respondents plan to continue abstaining from any network security consolidation in the foreseeable future.
- South Korea is the furthest ahead in the network security consolidation game, with 78% of respondents already having done some form of consolidation. China is 2nd with 77% and Taiwan is 3rd with 74%.
- In Japan, 14% of the sample feels they have embraced network security consolidation to the furthest extent desirable. This is twice as high as the Asian average of 7%.
- Hong Kong organisations are most likely to start out on network security consolidation for the first time (34%). Singapore is 2nd with 32%. In Japan, the figure is only 18%.
India is likely to witness the rollout of fourth generation (4G) mobile telephony in 2012 even as third generation (3G) service is still gaining ground among mobile subscribers.
- E-commerce leader Amazon has enabled its AppStore for Android users in India, according to various media reports.
- Amazon’s AppStore has over one lakh apps and is offering one paid app for free daily. Users will need to register for Amazon.com before downloading the app. Like Apple’s AppStore, users will also need to add their credit card information before accessing the app store. On the other hand, Google’s Android market, which comes loaded with all Android OS-based phones, does not require this information and only asks for it when you download a paid app. This could be a make or break for Amazon’s AppStore in India, where credit card usage is still low. By restricting access to free apps, we doubt Amazon will see much traction for its app store unless it offers a huge USP.
- According to a report by mobile market intelligence firm Research2Guidance, Google’s Android Market crossed six billion downloads in August. It also states that as of the end of August 2011, the Android Market contained 277,252 apps and on average, weather apps generated the highest total revenue from paid downloads.
Wipro to sell data centres and other computer hardware assets of Infocrossing
Posted on: November 11, 2011
- India’s third biggest software exporter Wipro is evaluating options to sell data centres and other computer hardware assets of its US subsidiary Infocrossing to unlock value from what the company now calls ‘non-core’ business, people familiar with the discussions said last week.
- At least five persons, including officials and bankers, said Wipro has already received initial offers from several medium to large US telcos, and the company is deliberating to carve out five data centres owned by Infocrossing for a potential sale estimated to be worth anywhere between $300 million and $400 million.
- This part of Infocrossing (data centres) is not a game changer we want over next three-five years,” the first person said on conditions of anonymity because these discussions are at an early stage. The person also added that Citigroup is currently holding discussions with potential buyers.
- Interests received so far are unsolicited. As of now there is more than one potential bidder,” he added. When contacted, a Wipro spokesman declined to offer any comments as the company is in a silent period ahead of its earnings announcement next month. In August 2007, Wipro had acquired Infocrossing for $600 million, with then revenues of around $200 million.
- With an aim to increase its customer base across the country, Nashik-based ESDS Software Solution Pvt Ltd- a group of web hosting companies based in UK and US, is planning to target all major cities across the country.
- As part of this, the company has just opened its offices in New Delhi and Pune. The company is also planning to set up its new offices in Mumbai, Bangalore and Indore by the end of the current FY 2011-12
- ESDS is one of the fastest growing dedicated server hosting solution providers with Data center services for most of the mission critical online businesses. The company has three data centre facilities located each in UK, US and India (Nashik), with a strong base of 33,000 customers worldwide.
- In today’s competitive world, local presence plays an important role; especially for a growing company like us. Hence, we have decided to target all major cities across the country to increase our client base. As part of this, we have just set up our offices in Pune and New Delhi. Now, we are planning to enter Mumbai, Bangalore and Indore cities by opening offices there by March 2012. The purpose behind having these centers is to provide the best services to each and every corner of the country by improving our reach,” Piyush Somani, Managing Director, ESDS Software Solution Pvt Ltd, told Business Standard.
- Net4, a network and application service provider in India with consolidated revenues of Rs 304 crore, is all set to introduce white-label services for its software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings.
- The company added cloud computing to its portfolio in September 2010, and already has more than 700 customers for its software-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service offerings.
- The company currently offers a range of Microsoft applications such as Exchange, SharePoint, CRM (Dynamics) under its SaaS offerings and also supports platforms, databases and applications under its PaaS offerings. These services are provisioned from Net4’s state of the art ISO 270001(Information Security) multi redundant data centre infrastructure. The new services would be launched in December 2011. We are currently working on SMB applications such as low end CRM, accounting apps or mini ERP, HR, Payroll etc.
- These services would be branded under Net4’s direct or sub brands,” said Jasjit Sawhney, CMD, Net4India. On how the services would be priced, Sawhney said, “We offer Microsoft Exchange on the cloud at Rs 3,500 per user per year. Our own UC applications are offered for Rs 800 per person per year.” The company would work with its 100 odd tier-2 channel partners to resell the services.
Tags: Cloud computing, cloud services, CRM, India, net4india, news, sharepoint, technology, white labeling
Slowdown in the telecom sector continued last month, with GSM operators adding just about 5.33 million subscribers in August, compared to 7.65 million in the earlier month.
Posted on: November 11, 2011
- The GSM subscriber base, thus, stood at 611.75 million at the end of last month.
- For the fourth month in a row, subscriber additions continued to decline. In May, for the first time since October 2009, the subscriber additions was below the 10-million mark when 9.53 million GSM users were added.
- In June, the numbers dipped further and only 8.58 million GSM users were added. The GSM subscriber base stood at 598.77 million at the end of June, and in July 7.64 million subscribers were added to take the total 606.41 million.
- Bharti Airtel, the largest GSM player, added 1.15 million users in August, taking its total subscriber base to 171.84 million, data released by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) showed. It had 28.09 per cent market share at the end of August. Rival Vodafone Essar, with a 23.56 per cent market share, notched up 1.13 million new subscribers during the month. Its subscriber base reached 144.14 million in August.
- Aditya Birla group firm Idea Cellular added 2.33 million users during the month to take its total user base to 98.44 million, while Aircel added 602,312 customers to take its subscriber base to 59 million. State-owned telecom firms BSNL and MTNL added 388,057 and 32,932 new users, respectively, taking their subscriber base to 90.62 million and 5.29 million, respectively.
- Uncertainty in the telecom sector nothwithstanding, Norwegian telecom giant Telenor today said it will invest up to Rs 15,500 crore in Indian operations in joint venture with Unitech Wireless. Group CEO Fredrik Baksaas said “peak funding” will remain within Rs 15,500 crore, while addressing an event ”Capital Markets Day, 2011′ in Norway.
- Telenor, which has a mobile services joint venture in India with Unitech Wireless and operates under the brand of Uninor, had said last year that it plans to invest Rs 15,500 in 10 years in India operations. The company expects to generate a four-fold growth in its revenue target to Rs 2,500 crore from its Indian arm for the fiscal 2011-12 as compared to Rs 600 crore registered in last fiscal, Uninor Managing director Sigve Brekke said.
- Besides, he said that the company projects to slash its capital expenditure by Rs 400 crore in 2011-12 from Rs 1,200 crore posted in 2010-11. Brekke further said that the operator plans to break-even on EBIDTA margins by the first half of 2013 in India. Telenor holds 67.25 per cent stake in Uninor, the rest is with real estate firm Unitech. The company had received licence to roll out services in 21 of the 22 circles in India. Although it has launched its services in only 13 circles and has a mobile subscriptions of 23 million users.
- UK-based mobile operator Vodafone today formed a partnership with Conexus Mobile Alliance which will expand market presence of both the companies across the world.
- The value to Vodafone of collaborating with Conexus will be significant, given the growing importance of Asia to our enterprise customers. These agreements will strengthen and deepen the benefits to our customers operating in these large and dynamic markets,” Vodafone’s Group Chief Commercial Officer “This [partnership] enhances the roaming experience for a combined global mobile customer base of over 600 million,” the company said.
- Vodafone said it intended to work with as many of the Conexus members as possible, complementing its own regional operations in India, Australia, Fiji and New Zealand, and its existing partners in Malaysia (Celcom) and Sri Lanka (Dialog).
- The London-headquartered company”s agreement with Conexus will include partnerships with FarEasTone (Taiwan), Hutchison Telecom (Hong Kong), NTT DOCOMO (Japan), SMART (the Philippines), StarHub (Singapore) and TrueMove (Thailand). Vodafone and Conexus also intend to expand partnerships with remaining Conexus members, such as KT in South Korea, to further enhance coverage.
- Mobile handset maker Coolpad Overseas, a joint venture between Hong Kong-listed China Wireless Technologies and XXX, is planning to introduce 15 new CDMA handset models in the country as part of its plans to strengthen its presence in the domestic mobile market.
- Plans are also being finalised to set up an Rs 100 crore R&D facility in India by the end of next year and, at a later date, a manufacturing unit to cater to the domestic market. Reliance Communications, the country’s second largest mobile service provider, and Coolpad are currently in the process of a pan-India roll out of the latter’s new product, the D530, a fully loaded Android Éclair CDMA phone.
- The product, which was launched in Hyderabad on Tuesday after Kolkata and Chennai earlier, is being retailed through Reliance Worlds and Reliance Mobile stores.
- We currently have three models in the Indian CDMA market. We plan to launch the 15 new models in the next 12 months, with a price range of Rs 2,500-20,000. Most of the new models will have Android operating systems,” Mr Sami Al-Lawati, Managing Director of Coolpad Communications, told media persons at the launch.
- With the Indian CDMA market currently pegged at one million units per month, Coolpad is aiming at sales of one million units annually in the next 12 months. The D530 has a price tag of Rs 7,999. Reliance Communications has launched an exclusive scheme of 100 per cent of the handset price as money back over 24 months, Mr V. Nagaprasad, Hub Head, Andhra Pradesh, said. R&D facility
- The city government had installed the intelligent signalling system on the Ambedkar Nagar BRT a few months ago, but it has not extended the system beyond the 5.8km stretch after that. On Wednesday, talk of extending the system to the rest of the city again came up with lieutenant governor Tejendra Khanna visiting the operations control center (OCC) at the DIMTS (Delhi integrated multi-modal transit system) headquarters.
- Appreciating the benefits of the system, Khanna mused that installing the ISS and cameras at all the junctions would immensely help in managing traffic. The suggestion, however, seems unlikely to take off anytime soon.
- The installation of ISS on BRT corridor has been a long-drawn project, with DIMTS taking more than a year to install the cameras and corresponding infrastructure on the stretch. Meanwhile, the traffic police have been trying to get the intelligent transport system (ITS) in place, though the tender process for award of the contract in limbo for several months now.
- The intelligent signaling system is a part of the ITS. Both the agencies admit that ISS will go a long way in tackling the traffic situation in the city. However, nothing concrete has come through till date. ITS is an application where camera feeds as well as other real-time data is used to adjust to a traffic situation – especially helpful during peak hours. The cameras detect the intensity of traffic and feed data into computers. This allows for real time adjustments of traffic signals that are synchronized to help commuters catch green lights all through the stretch, leading to efficient traffic flow.
- Avnet Technology Solutions, the technology solutions distribution company and an operating group of Avnet introduced CloudReady Program, an initiative designed to prepare and enable channel partners to capitalize on emerging cloud computing growth opportunities in India.
- CloudReady covers all the three facets of cloud computing namely private, public and hybrid, and offers partners tools and resources to enter the cloud computing market quickly, implement cloud-based solutions and profitably grow their business. It is focused on training to help partners build knowledge and skills, cloud services to provide the “what to sell”, pre-sales expertise to speed selling cycles and cloud maturity model to enable consistent execution.
- Although cloud computing is still a relatively recent phenomenon in India, we wanted to build our capabilities and resources early on to serve this rapidly evolving cloud computing market. The Avnet CloudReady team will educate our channel partners on market dynamics, enhance their cloud computing capabilities and help them create strategies to capture opportunities,” said Naresh Desai, General Manager, Avnet Technology Solutions, India.
MarketBite 