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Fujitsu launches x86 PRIMEQUEST Servers

NetApp announces ONTAP 9

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The Birth of New-Age Datacenters

38pg

VMware may
acquire Arkin Net

VMware has announced its intention to

acquire Arkin Net, a software-defined data
center security and operations company.
Financial details of the transaction were
not disclosed. The transaction is expected
to close in Q2 2016.

With VMware NSX combined with

Arkin and vRealize, VMware will deliver
the security and operations management
plane for the SDDC. Over time, Arkin
will solidify vRealize Suites position
as the industrys most comprehensive
Cloud Management Platform that
delivers application-focused operations,
NSX micro-segmentation at scale and
cross-domain visibility and context across
physical and logical infrastructure, said
Ajay Singh, Senior Vice-President &
General Manager, Cloud Management
Business Unit, VMware.

HPE redefines its Helion

Cloud Portfolio

ewlett Packard Enterprise has

enhanced its HPE Helion cloud
portfolio which includes HPE Helion
Cloud Suite, HPE Helion CloudSystem 10,
HPE Helion Stackato 4.0, HPE Cloudline
3100 Server and New HPE Technology
Services offerings.Organizations require
their own right mix of traditional IT,
private, managed and
public clouds and the
flexibility to support
applications
spanning different
technologies,
architectures
and
delivery models. The
HPE Helion portfolio
gives customers a simple, powerful set
of options, said Vikram K, Director
Servers, Hewlett Packard Enterprise
India.

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June 2016

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See what R

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June 2016

HELLO INDIA

Social Media becoming a growing risk

..................... for Corporate Security
With technology getting connected to the world in which cyber attacks are growing more persistent
and sophisticated by the day, threats are evolving fast too. It is the need of the hour when the academia,
industry and government must work together in new bold ways to solve the ever-increasing challenges
of cybersecurity. Going forward, as technology keeps on evolving, Internet of Things (IoT) will be the
major transformation in the digital world that has the potential to affect everyone and every business.
In a very short time, IoT will have sensing, analytics and visualization tools, which can be accessed by
anyone, anytime and anywhere in the world on a personal, community or a national level. However,
the real change is not that machines are talking to each other, but that people are talking more and
more through machines there could be a deep-rooted security problem with the possibility of
impersonation, identity theft, hacking and, in general, cyber-threats.
Moving ahead, India needs a cyber workforce as an enabling national asset to meet domestic as well as
global cybersecurity demands. The nation is in dire need for formulation of a framework for creation of
a cybersecurity workforce. The simple idea is to Meet the Demand and Create the Supply. No business
can afford to ignore cybercrime, which is estimated to cost the global economy around $500 billion a
year. Many businesses are already citing downtime or lost productivity as a costly side-effect of some
cybercriminal activities. Secondly, the growing potential for cyber attack using social media has created new opportunities for trolling,
bringing into the real world ethnic division and social unrest. An investigation unearthed hundreds of fake profiles on the professional
networking site LinkedIn that had been created by scammers posing as recruitment consultants. The apparent aim of these fake profiles was
to infiltrate business networks by making and exploiting connections with reputable executives. Corporates use
social media networks for marketing and brand reorganization, all of which make them fertile hunting grounds for
cybercriminals. It is also a fact that hackers are also using social media to manipulate customers.
Lastly, going by the data, Facebook has 1.59 billion monthly active users more people than the population
of China. However, the irony of the day is that China has banned Facebook. One of my other concerns is the
recent acquisition of LinkedIn by Microsoft for a sum of $26.2 billion. How will this acquisition help the industry
in terms of reducing cyber attacks and protecting corporate security? For Microsoft, surely it will be a good
opportunity to mark its presence in the social media, which has been dominated by Facebook and Google.
It is high time the tech biggies of the valley bring out a newer comprehensive security cover for the social
media users!

Please talk about your accomplishments users operating smoothly. They can expedite
response times and enhance a company's reach.
in the industry?
The foundation of Deskera was laid during
my IIT Kanpur days when I was working with
SMEs and start-ups, writing source codes and
helping them use the basic business software.
It was at that time that I realized that the
existing ecosystem of enterprise management
software was largely focused on serving the
needs of multi-national corporations, thereby
leaving behind the vast SME and start-up
segment, which was untapped, un-deservedly
so. It is this realization that made me work
towards the segment. Since its inception,
Deskera has remained true to its commitment
of helping SMEs and start-ups find their feet
and go for automation.
At Deskera, being the CEO and Founder
of the organization, I enjoy the role of a
strategist with a strong focus on research
and development of Deskera products. I am
an advocate of innovation and optimum
customer experience. My passion lies in
creating value and delivering technologies
that have a positive impact on peoples lives.

What kind of a relationshi p do you

enjoy with your stakeholders in the
industry?
Partners and distributors play a vital role in
keeping the lines between manufacturers and

June 2016

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Deskera recognizes and treats it partners and

distributors as an integral part of its team. We
cherish our ties with each of them since they
are important pillars of our success. We believe
in a symbiotic relationship founded on deep
trust and understanding. Our commitment to
bring the best of technology to our customers
is absolute and that is not possible without
our stakeholders.

Where do you see yourself three years

from now?
Deskera is growing phenomenally and our
future looks promising. Currently, 20% of our
revenue comes from India. In the next three
years we foresee the organization growing
at a healthier rate. We want to reach out to
every startup, SME and individual in every
city and town of this country. In line with
the Indian Governments vision to boost the
SME sector, we want to help these enterprises
run their businesses on an integrated Cloudbased platform, thus enhancing productivity
and moving one more step in the direction of
the Governments Make in India mission.
We have been doing our own bit and want
to continue in transforming our nation into
a Digital India.

Besides IT,what are your other areas

of interests?

Shashank Dixit
Founder & CEO - Deskera

Well, IT is something that has always been

very close to me. However, two other areas
where my interests lie: space technology and
artificial intelligence.

Shashank Dixit is a successful entrepreneur

and the founder and CEO of Deskera. He is the
driving force, molding Deskera from a small
setup to a multinational corporation. His vision
and role as a strategist have been pivotal in
making Deskera the success that it is today.
Focused on research and development of Deskera
products, he is a strong advocate of innovation
and optimum customer experience. He also
co-founded Megabucks, an entrepreneurship and
business festival organized by the IIT, Kanpur

CONTENTS
Website: www.varindia.com

Publisher: Deepak Kumar Sahu

Editor: S Mohini Ratna
Executive Editor: Dr. Vijay Anand
Assistant Editor: Samrita Baruah
Copy Editor: C. M. Dutta
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Correspondent: Raj Bala
Art Director: Rakesh Kumar
Network Administrator: Ashok Kumar Singh
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Manager-SEO: Bidyadhar Behera

The Birth of NewAge Datacenters

BUSINESS:
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Circulation Executive: Manish Kumar
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FACE TO FACE

VAR SPEAK

17|

NComputing
brings
nextgeneration computing with the
launch of MX100 Series

19|

Koinca Minolta transforming into

a Service Provider

42|

Huawei focuses on the work

before sudden breakthroughs

44|

Veeam helps customers to achieve

Always-on Business

48|

A
Two-way
Communication
Defines Lenovos Service Strategy

49|

Hyper-Converged Infrastructure
Redefining IT Deployment

VAR GRIEVANCE
52|

TAIT Addresses Twin issues of

Cheque Dishonour and Income/
Direct Tax Rules

MARKET WATCH
26|

38pg

Enabling
the
e-commerce
ecosystem with sales enablement
methodologies

23|

Red Hat takes Partner Business to

New Heights

VAR CORPORATE
46-47| TPC-E Benchmark Result for
System x3650 M5

INDUSTRY EVENT
45|

Bentley Systems CONNECTION

Events Draw around 400+
Attendees

ISODA CORNER
43|

DigitalTrack Provides Total Storage

Solution

EVENT
27|

14th VARINDIA IT Forum 2016

Helping Build the Digital India
Vision

INDUSTRY WATCH
37|

Why Microsoft Acquires LinkedIn

for a huge amount of $26.2 bn?

VAR MOBILITY
50|

BlackBerry
Enterprise
space

Leveraging
the
Mobility Software

REGULARS
Guest Speak

08

Round About

12

Hot Bytes

14, 16

On the Ramp

18, 20

Voice N Data

22

Channel Buzz

24

Product of the Month

25

ISODA CORNER

43

BY FORTUNE GLOBAL 500 COMPANIES*

* Red Hat client data and Fortune 500 list, 2014

Copyright 2016 Red Hat, Inc. Red Hat and the Shadowman logoare
trademarks of Red Hat, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.

ROUND ABOUT

Expanding Horizon of Genome: Will

the World be the same in Ten Years?
A teacher asked his students in the high school what, according
to them, is the frontier technology. Opinions differed. Many said
aerospace, thinking that discoveries in the outer space are going to
rewrite the human history. A few clung on to the clich Information
Technology believing that breakthroughs in this domain will have a
far-reaching impact on how people think, communicate and transact
businesses. The teacher paused, giving the impression that the answer
that he wanted had yet to come. Then a backbencher, who was sluggish
in his behaviour, stood up and said that it is genome that is going to rule
the roost in the coming years.
The inquisitive teacher, who never expected such an answer, if any,
from the pupil, wanted to test him with further queries. The teacher
inquired how he did come to such an answer. The boy quipped that he,
along with his parents, paid a visit to a doctor the other day to consult
him why he was not studious in his studies, as he was always laidback
and lazy in even doing the daily routine works. The erudite doctor
explained how most of the traits and habits a boy or girl inherits from
their forefathers through the genome, which we conveniently call as
hereditary. According to him, the behaviour of a child whether he/
she is intelligent, dull, timid, aggressive and what have you is decided
by his DNA and very little can be done to change those characteristics.
He also said that the doctor has explained how such things can be
changed at the embryonic stage by manipulating the DNA.
The teacher was aghast at the response of the pupil, from whom he
never expected the answer. He thought that none of his more intelligent
pupils would ever be able to tell the correct answer.
Why this renewed interest in genome? The word renewed has to
be marked since it is not the first time that the scientific world has
been discussing about genetics. Many years back, there lived a monk
named Gregor Mendel, who spent most of the time in the garden
adjoining the monastery studying about the pea plants, their behaviour,
and how their characteristics can be altered. After his death when his
published works came to the notice of the scientists and botanists, they
realized how genius that man was and how profound were his scientific
discourse, which had rewritten the available knowledge. He recognized
the mathematical patterns of inheritance from one generation to the
next.
Genome or Eugenics gradually developed over the years since
Darwin and Mendel. Some crude applications of this science were put
to use in sex determination, IVF, etc which were fraught with good and
bad. Stem technology is also an offshoot of this discipline. Can anyone
claim that we have perfected this science? The body of information
instructs that this science is far from perfect.
Let me start with the good side. Should you like to have a progeny
free from diseases, hardworking, intelligent and can be a real asset
to nation building, science and technology can provide you the
opportunity to go for one. Now the question is how? After years
of research, scientists have mapped a good number of genes that is
responsible for various functions, traits and can detect at the embryonic
stage itself whether a particular gene or combinations of genes can lead
a person to chronic diseases like diabetes, Parkinsons disease, cancer,
retardation, schizophrenia, etc. Using various techniques developed in
the laboratory, scientists can manipulate that gene or combinations of
genes and straighten them up to preempt occurrence of these diseases at
a later stage. If the DNA combination cannot be altered or manipulated
by any chance, the embryo can be destroyed at that stage itself so that
one can avoid a situation where a person born with such attributes and
subject him or her to severe sufferings at a later stage.
Now the point is whether gene selection can be justified from the
equitable perspective. It goes without saying that application of such
technologies in the present stage is very costly. It would mean that these
perquisites are within the reach of only the rich, who can afford such
expenses.

12

June 2016

www.varindia.com

That inequitable paradigm agitates the minds of many scientists

and sociologists. They feel that healthcare, particularly the tertiary
segment, where treatment necessitates huge expenses have already gone
over the roof and the poor cannot afford to have access to that unless
the government or non-government organizations come forward to
foot their bills. Against this backdrop, from the perspective of social
justice, such random selection of genes will not find favour with the
general public.
Bereft of its terse reading and connotations, it dictates that the
research on the behaviour of genes and their compositions is far more
complicated than can be revealed so far from the extensive research.
There are still various diseases whose exact causes are still not mapped
in precise terms. A case in point is the common disease that has afflicted
millions and is threatening to engulf many, diabetes. The causes of the
disease are not exactly mapped in precise terms. Scientists ponder over
many reasons including genetics, life styles and a host of other reasons
that debilitate the beta cells that cause imbalances in the secretion of
insulin, despite years of research into it. Then, how one can zero in on
the genes that cause the disease?
The other reason is the intrinsically unpredictable nature of
some genes. Most genes intersect with other triggers environment,
behaviours or even parental or and prenatal exposures to determine
organisms form and function and their consequent effect on its future.
Most of these interactions are not systematic and they happen by chance
and there is no method to predict them with certainty.
A similar conundrum arises when an embryo is detected with 10%
defect and the probability of getting a particular disease is only 10%,
should it be treated along with the types that can transmit 100% disease.
Human nature is such that one does not know where to draw the line.
At the end, are we nearing a consensus when and how to apply
eugenics? I still think that we are far from reaching a well-considered
consensus. It is the most difficult terrain, whatever limit that we set,
it can be breached since most of the concepts like a perfect baby or a
disease-free body is more in the realm of subjectivity. n

www.varindia.com

June 2016

13

HOT BYTES

D-Link and Inspira Networking

Solutions at DGS&D Rates

-Link
has
announced that
the Directorate General
of Supplies and Disposals
(DGS&D) has awarded a
rate contract agreement
for the purchase of
D-Link products and
services. DGS&D Rate
Contract
R/C
No.
SSNETWORKI/IT-1/
RC-71160000/0216/81/
OA612/4790 is valid
through April 2017.
Through the rate
contract agreement
supported by Inspira,
a
national
D-Link
distributor, the company

will offer industry-leading

Networking
solutions
(Routers, Switches, Cable
and Racks) and services to
Government institutions
(both Central & State
Government), PSUs and
autonomous bodies. As
D-Link and Inspira look to
target more Government
opportunities,
the
companys Networking
technology and market
presence are strongly
placed to support national
initiatives.

Zebra Technologies ushers in

Next Wave of Industrial Age

ebra Technologies
Corporation has
shared its vision Visibility
Thats Visionary as the
company moves forward
within a growing industry
category,
Enterprise
Asset Intelligence (EAI).
Eighteen months after its
acquisition of Motorola
Solutions
Enterprise
business,
Zebra
has
increased
businesses
ability to track critical
assets
within
their
operations and know
exactly what they are,
where they are, and
their condition so they
can make smarter, faster

decisions that improve

their bottom line.
For more than 40
years, Zebra has developed
the building blocks of
todays Internet of Things
(IoT) technology with its
global leadership in the
Automatic Identification
and
Data
Capture
(AIDC) market, including
sensors, barcodes, RFID,
and wireless networks.
Aligning their solutions
to its vision, Zebra is
now bringing new gamechanging
products,
services
and
partner
programs to the Indian
market.

Sanovi inks multiple partnerships

for its Cloud Migration Solution

anovi has signed

up multiple global
and regional partnerships
for its Cloud Migration
Manager
software.
Sanovi Cloud Migration
Manager2.0 (CMM) is a
leading-edge
enterprise
software platform
to
accelerate
deployment
of
large-scale
Cloud
transformation projects.
It is exciting to note
that with Sanovi CMM
we no longer need to wing
it and fly into the Cloud!
said
Varun
Mathur,
AVP & Head Hybrid
IT
Practice,
Zensar
Technologies.
With

14

June 2016

Disaster Recovery Management Software

its structured Lifecycle

approach, Sanovi CMM
provides the instruments
for
monitoring
and
managing the migration
SLA and RoI metrics. It
provides a complete Cloud
Migration flight navigation
plan for flying a modern
enterprise
application
into public cloud. The
speed of migration with
the tool is a compelling
case for business nod. We
are happy to partner with
Sanovi Technologies, he
added.

www.varindia.com

Ingram Micro
adds Dropbox
Business

ngram Micro has

expanded
the
availability of Dropbox
Business to the Ingram
Micro Cloud Marketplace
in India. Through it
channel partners can easily
purchase, provision, and
manage Dropbox Business
via a single automated
platform.
The addition of
Dropbox Business to
our Cloud Marketplace
allows us to effectively
serve the business needs
of our growing channel
partner base in India.
The automated Cloud
Marketplace presents a
significant
competitive
advantage to our channel
partners
by
offering
a
streamlined
way
to introduce proven
cloud technologies like
Dropbox Business to their
customers in real time,
said Jaishankar Krishnan,
Sr VP & CEO Ingram
Micro India.

Tally Solutions
embeds Krishi
Kalyan Cess

ally
Solutions
has
announced
that all versions of its
flagship product, Tally.
ERP 9 have been enabled
to support the newly
passed Krishi Kalyan Cess
through an update which
aims to support Indian
businesses in complying
seamlessly
with
the
government regulation,
effective from 1st June,
2016. Implementing the
new cess will be fast and
smooth for all businesses
that use Tally.ERP 9.
In Tally.ERP 9, the
Krishi Kalyan cess is auto
calculated in transactions,
be it regular sale, reverse
charge, sale of service
with abatement or sale
value which is inclusive of
tax. The printed invoice
will also display the cess
value.

TP-LINK Rolls out Spain

Calling Scheme

P-LINK
has
announced
the
launch of its channel
reward
programme
Spain Calling. The
reward scheme is based
on different slabs and on
achieving specific target
slabs, partners can win a
trip to Spain, Samsung 40"
UHD TV, iPad Mini2 and
Nikon DSLR, etc. This
channel-friendly, multitiered scheme has been
launched to incentivize
and reward the partner
community for their
significant contribution

to TP-LINK's business.
"We have a broad
range
of
enterprise
solutions and technologies
that we offer to customers
through our channel
network. Introduction of
'Spain Calling' scheme is
an additional incentive
to partners as it is our
conscious effort to help
partners in achieving the
rewards beyond the usual
profits through these
schemes," said Sanjay
Sehgal, Vice-President
SMB, TP-LINK India.

Salesforce announces New Centre

of Excellence in Hyderabad

alesforce
has
announced plans
to significantly expand
its presence in India
with a new Centre of
Excellence in Hyderabad,
located in a new building
under construction in the
Divyasree Orion Tech
Business Park. Salesforce
also plans to add over
1,000 jobs in Hyderabad
by 2020, tapping into the
regions large community
of
highly
skilled
technology talent.
We are thrilled to be

expanding our presence

and
deepening
our
commitment to India,
home to some of the best
technology talent in the
world, said Parker Harris,
Co-Founder, Salesforce.
Salesforce
Hyderabad
will provide a centre of
excellence in the region
and play a crucial role in
growing our technology
and product teams, as well
as our customer success
organization, to meet the
needs of our customers
worldwide.

EMC All-Flash Storage Solutions

accelerate market share globally

M
C
Corporation
has announced a series
of all-flash storage
portfolio as customer
and
market
share
milestones
solutions
which address a multitude
of enterprise needs for
consolidated and mixed
workloads. Between 2014
and 2015, EMC increased
its base of flash customers
globally by 78%, with
revenue for flash offerings
increasing by 104% in H2
2015 over H1 2015.
Jeremy
Burton,
President of Products
and Marketing, EMC,
said, EMC has declared
2016 as the year of AllFlash for primary storage.

Built on the amazing

success of XtremIO, our
comprehensive portfolio
now includes VMAX AllFlash, DSSD D5 and the
brand new EMC Unity
designed to enable the
Modern Data Center for
todays global enterprises.
As performance-hungry
workloads
continue
growing in diversity,
enterprises can turn to
EMC for the portfolio of
all-flash storage solutions
at
price-performance
points to match almost
any data center use case.

A price tag that will get you

new customers.
Introducing the ThinkServer TS140
for small businesses with big demands.

At Lenovo we develop technology to meet the ever-growing demands of small

businesses. With that in mind, we have launched the ThinkServer TS140 in India.
It is powered to take on tough challenges, yet priced attractively.

Supports enterprise-grade HDDs (Built-in RAID 5)

Whisper-quiet at 26 decibels
Intel Xeon E3 series processor
Windows Server 2012 R2 platform
So go on, add this server to your portfolio and keep adding to your customer base.

Contact: 1800 3000 9990 / corpsales@lenovo.com

Intel Xeon E3
series processor.

The following are trademarks or registered trademarks of Lenovo: Lenovo, the Lenovo logo and
ThinkServer. Intel, the Intel logo, Xeon and Xeon Inside are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel
Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of
Microsoft Corporation. 2016 Lenovo. All rights reserved. Terms and Conditions apply. The test(s)
above are performed on statistical samples.

www.varindia.com

March 2016

21

HOT BYTES

Dell boosts Digital India

Campaign with Aarambh

ell India has

announced
Aarambh a pan-India
initiative
aimed
at
spearheading the use of
the PC for education.
Through Aarambh,
Dell will engage with three
key audiences students,
teachers and parents in a
series of activities meant to
build their confidence and
familiarity with using the
PC. The programme aims
to enable both parents
and teachers to actively
aid in the educational
development of the child.
The project aims to reach

one million students

and 1, 00,000 teachers
across 5,000 schools, and
2, 00,000 parents in 75
cities across the country.
In a larger context, PC
adoption
can
enable
the nurturing of digital
citizens who will serve as
the building blocks for a
rapidly-developing Digital
India.

Cisco turns Jaipur into

First Lighthouse City

isco
has
announced the
city of Jaipur to be the
first Smart+Connected
Community Lighthouse
City in South Asia. Cisco
Lighthouse City status
credential is assigned to
a select list of cities all
over the world. With
this development, Jaipur
will gain access to Ciscos
huge global network
and channel programme
capabilities; and the city
will also benefit from
the economic and social
transformation set to occur
as the country embarks

on the next phase of the

Digital India programme.
Dinesh
Malkani,
President, Cisco India and
SAARC, said, We are
really proud to announce
Jaipur as a Lighthouse
City for Cisco globally.
We are also excited to
announce an Innovation
Centre in the city. Jaipur,
as a Lighthouse City, will
showcase to the world
whatis possible when
visionary city leaders and
urban planners design and
build 21st-century cities
connected by a digital
infrastructure."

New Intel Initiatives to accelerate

Digital India growth

u p p o r t i n g
Digital
India
programme, Intel India
has announced a series
of new initiatives. The
announcement includes
three projects designed to
accelerate digital literacy
at the grassroots level
by reaching out to the
population in non-urban
India, upskill citizens
in the tier-II cities and
beyond, and encourage
innovation from the
local level. Additionally,
as a part of the recently
launched Ek Kadam
Unnati Ki Aur initiative,

16

June 2016

Intel has also inaugurated

Unnati
Kendra
at
Common Service Centre
(UK at CSC) in Haryana
to accelerate access to
technology in non-urban
India. The company is
also looking forward to
opening several more of
these facilities in the state
with the aim to serve as
one of the common access
digital learning centres for
people of the state.

www.varindia.com

IBM Smart
City Solutions
deployed in
Presidential
Estate

BM
has
set
up
Intelligent
Operations Center (IOC)
to enhance efficiency of
critical infrastructure and
utilities at Presidential
Estate. Rashtrapati Bhavan
has been transformed
into a smart township
with the deployment of
IBM Smart City for the
digital
transformation.
Spread across 330 acres
of land and home to over
5,000 residents, the selfsustained
Presidential
Estate is adopting IBMs
technology and solutions
to
become
future
ready. The Intelligent
Operations
Center
addresses challenges that
are inherent to townships
water supply, security,
electrical infrastructure
and
solid
waste
management.

Wipro makes big

data technology
adoption simpler

ipro
has
announced
that it has open-sourced
its big data product, Big
Data Ready Enterprise
(BDRE), which makes
big
data
technology
adoption simpler and
faster by optimizing big
data workloads under
an integrated unied
framework.
Wipro takes pride
in being a significant
contributor to the opensource
community,
and the release of
BDRE reinforces our
commitment
towards
this ecosystem. BDRE
will not only make big
data technology adoption
simpler and effective, it will
also open opportunities
across industry verticals
that organizations can
successfully
leverage,
said Bhanumurthy B.
M., President & Chief
Operating Officer, Wipro

DigitalOcean launches New

Datacenter in Bangalore

igitalOcean, the
developers cloud
computing
platform,
has launched its new
datacenter in Bangalore,
India to support Indias
fast-growing
developer
and start-up ecosystem.
DigitalOcean
will
continue to offer a single
pricing plan across all of
its regions worldwide,
including
Bangalore.
This means SSD-enabled
cloud servers starting at
US$5 per month, and
identical pricing for all
additional services like
bandwidth, snapshots and

beyond. Bangalore will

be DigitalOceans eighth
region globally, following
New York, San Francisco,
Amsterdam, Singapore,
London, Frankfurt and
Toronto.
Considering
the
number
of
software
developers
throughout
India will grow to over
5 million by the year
2018, the region is one
of the most important
technology markets in
the world. DigitalOcean
has hired a local team and
has also partnered with
NASSCOM.

Informatica expands its

partnership with Tableau

ith the aim

to bridge the
business as well as IT
Divide, Informatica and
Tableau Software have
entered into partnership.
Together,
Tableaus
self-service
analytics
and Informaticas clean,
trusted data and metadata
enable business users
to make even faster
and smarter decisions.
Both the companies will
provide the industrys
end-to-end architecture
and framework for agile

business intelligence.
Business users and
IT alike are frustrated
with data that results
from traditional waterfall
processes and lengthy
cycles. Business users
are further aggravated
by lack of easy access
to key data sources and
the inability to easily
combine data across
sources. Meanwhile, IT is
naturally concerned over
the use and proliferation
of
potentially
poor
quality data.

Avaya reinforces its position

with mid-market growth

vayas position
has
been
strengthened in the first
half of 2016 by a strong
mid-market showing in
global growth regions,
registering two-fold
growth on the back of
a strong push towards
digital transformation
among small and
medium businesses.
A focused solution suite,
coupled with a strong
partner proposition and a
streamlined approach, has
resulted in strong growth
in Africa, Middle East,
Turkey, Russia & CIS,
India and SAARC, and
China.
The
mid-market

sector continues to present

a significant opportunity
and remain so even in
the face of economic
uncertainty.
Avaya

channel partners play a

crucial role in this growth
with their established
knowledge
of
the
customer, ability to create
a customized offering, and
their expertise with Avaya
products, said Chiradeep
Rao, Channels Head
India, Avaya.

FACE TO FACE

NComputing brings next-generation

computing with the launch of MX100 Series
NComputing is a leader in client virtualization solutions with over 5-million installed base worldwide. Removing the barriers through a
unique formula of simplicity, performance and value, NComputings integrated solutions serve global enterprise and mid-market companies
in the key verticals such as education, manufacturing and government.
central host computer using NComputing
vSpace desktop virtualization software,
customers achieve a high utilization. Up to
70% saving in the total cost of ownership
can be achieved compared to an all PCbased set-up, added Sharma.

NComputing is the fastest-growing

desktop virtualization company for
education and small to medium-size
enterprises (SMEs) in Asia. At the launch
of MX100, Manish Sharma, Vice-President
Sales, Asia-Pacific- N Computing, said
that its new hybrid 3-user thin-client
kit delivers a rich user experience at an
affordable price. MX100 combines the
best features of the companys widely
popular M-series and X-series which have
over 2.5 million seats installation in Asia
alone.
MX100 sets a new precedent in
affordability standards within the shared
computing market, providing customers
with savings as much as 65% in purchase
cost, 80% in maintenance cost and 90%
in energy consumption when compared
to an all PC-based solution. For example,
910 machines can be configured by using
unused power. With this, we are taking
affordable computing to the next level.

India Business

Designed based on the input from

existing customers, MX100 is available in
two models MX100 Direct (MX100D)
and MX100 Standard (MX100S). A single
MX100 kit includes three access devices
and multiple kits can be connected to the
host computer. Available immediately
worldwide
from
NComputings
authorized distributors, MX100 will
be sold in India through the companys
national distributor Redington India
and their 800+ channel partners across
the country. Replying to the total
number of machines installed, Sharma
said, The company has deployed about
15 lakh machines in India so far. 70% of
the business comes from the education
segment, those are essentially from the
State Government projects (Maharashtra,
Andhra Pradesh, Telengana, Gujarat,
Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, U.P., Bihar
and Odisha. Secondly, SME is the growth
area which contributes 25% of the business
and 5% comes from large enterprises. The
core strength of NComputing is providing
a warranty of 3 years on registration
and after-sales service is provided by 40
support centres in India."

Technology Architecture

While their underlying architecture

is identical, the MX100D and MX100S
differ in the way they connect to the

Roadmap
The key mantra of success is the
reference and recommended customers, be
it the government, SME or large enterprise
segment which help generate business
value. There is a great demand which has
arisen for the Linux and it seems a newer
business opportunity for the company.
NComputing is coming out with the
latest version of Linux. The development
work is going on in the Chennai (India)
office. The company aims to go ahead
with Linux for full mobility .

Manish Sharma
Vice-President Sales, AsiaPacific- N Computing,
host computer. The MX100D (Direct
model) connects through a PCI express
card which is bundled with the kit. The
power of the host computer is shared
with multiple users without the need of
a switch or any third-party hardware or
software. It is an enhanced version of
NComputings popular X-series. The
MX100D has been designed based on
the input collected from thousands of
customers over the last two years and
provides a great out-of-the-box experience.
There are significant enhancements to the
number of supported users on a single
host, and greater distance connectivity
providing expanded deployment options,
said Manjunath Revanasiddappa, Product
Manager of MX-Series, NComputing.
Growth Area
The MX100S (Standard model) is
an improved version of NComputings
M-series which has a strong installed base
of over 350,000 in Asia. The MX100S has
numerous enhancements over the M-series
such as enhanced multimedia performance,
superior graphics and support for gigabit
networks, while keeping the purchase
price low. The response of our customers
on the performance of MX100 has been
very positive. As 45 access devices of
MX100S model can be served by one

Voice of Partners
The announcement has delighted
NComputings distributors across Asia:
from Ingram Micro in Singapore and
Synnex in Thailand to Redington in
India. Anand Chakravarthy, President,
Redington (India) Ltd, shared his views,
We have been very impressed with the
pilot projects of MX100. NComputing
has certainly reached a new height in
delivering quality performance at an
affordable price. We plan to position
MX100D in education and Tier-II and
-III cities, while MX100S would be
ideal for government tenders, SMEs and
enterprises.
With over 2.5 million units deployed
across Asia including 1.5 million in India,
NComputing has been widely successful
in both channel sales and government-led
education tenders. In Asia, NComputing
is being used in the government schools
of the Philippines, Cambodia, Nepal and
Japan.
In India, the company has been
endorsed by several state governments to
provide affordable computing to millions
of students, especially in the rural and
remote areas. It is estimated that computer
labs of over 60,000 government schools
in India use NComputings technology.
Among other customers are recognized
universities and large organizations like
Employees State Insurance Corporation
(ESIC) which uses over 31,000 devices
across the nation. n

www.varindia.com

June 2016

17

ON THE RAMP

Polycom makes business

video meetings easy

olycom
has
removed
the
complexity of connecting
multiple video systems
from different vendors
the Polycom RealConnect
solution for Skype for
Business.
Polycom
RealConnect technology
has continued to push
the innovation curve,
and its latest iteration
allows for best-in-class
Skype
for
Business
collaboration with all
other video platforms.
Customers want simple
and intuitive technology
that works together with

everything else they

use in an economical
fashion. With Polycom
RealConnect technology,
Polycom is simplifying
the
communications
experience by bringing
everything, and everyone,
together in one easy
step, said Ashan Willy
Senior
Vice-President,
Product
Management
& Worldwide Systems
Engineering.

BlackBerry enhances its security

solution for Salesforce

lackBerry
has
announced
WatchDox by BlackBerry
Email
Protector,
an
entirely new offering that
provides businesses with
the means of automatically
controlling and securing
files sent through email
by embedding file-level
DRM protection, even
after they leave the
organizations firewall.
WatchDox File Sync and
Share integration will be
available for Salesforce.
com and Microsoft Office
Online.
WatchDox protects

the
new
borderless
enterprise by delivering
not only the most
secure EFSS File Sync
and Share solutions but
enhanced
integration
with
Salesforce.com
and the new BlackBerry
Email Protector. The risk
of data loss is significantly
minimized by encrypting
and enforcing DRM
protection at the file-level
when users are viewing,
editing and annotating
synced documents, said
Billy Ho, Executive VP,
Enterprise Product and
VAS, BlackBerry.

Prysm Introduces 85 and

98 LCD displays for India

o enhance the
collaboration
across the enterprise,
Prysm Inc has introduced
new 85 and 98 LCD
display. The company
demonstrated the display
in conjunction with the
new Prysm Enterprise
solution and Skype for
Business integration.
With
a
stunning
screen
resolution
and a user experience
that is immersive and
engaging,
this
larger
screen serves a need in
the market for larger,
fully integrated Visual

18

June 2016

BT integrates
FortiGate
firewalls

Workplace
solutions
for a new generation of
multi-purpose conference
rooms. The integrated
digital canvas allows
users to share, annotate,
and edit office docs, web
apps, multimedia files,
and video from multiple
simultaneous
sources
including laptops and
mobile devices.

www.varindia.com

T and Fortinet
have
entered
into an agreement that
will integrate Fortinets
FortiGate
enterprise
firewalls into BTs global
portfolio of managed
security services. The
agreement
confirms
BTs worldwide status
as a Fortinet Managed
Security Services Provider
(MSSP)
Platinum
Partner. BT customers
will benefit from the
protection provided by
Fortinets Security Fabric
architecture and BTs
global reach and expertise
in
managed
security
services.
Mark Hughes, Chief
Executive Officer, BT
Security, said, We are
committed to support our
customers with solutions
that can help them stay
secure and support their
journeys into the digital
world."

DataWind
Introduces
detachable
netbook

ataWind
has
launched
its
first detachable devices,
the new Droidsurfer
Netbooks 7DC+ & 3G7+
in India. The DroidSurfer
7DC+ (2G)&3G7+ (3G)
has a 7 inch multi-touch
projective
capacitive
screen, feature 0.3 MP
front facing camera and 2
MP rear camera with the
Android 4.4.2 operating
System running on a dual
core Cortex A7 processor.
In addition, they offer
upto 32GB of expandable
memory with features
like Wifi Hotspot, Wifi
Direct, Bluetooth and
GPS on some models.
Suneet Singh Tuli,
CEO
DataWind,
commented,
The
DroidSurfer
Netbooks
come with a sturdy
detachable
Bluetooth
2-in-1 keyboard.

Fujitsu launches x86

PRIMEQUEST Servers

ujitsu
has
announced new
Server
PRIMEQUEST
models which provide
the highest-ever levels
of
performance
and
stability from industry
standard servers, targeting
demanding
enterprise
computing environments
that have all but eliminated
unplanned downtime.
Michael
Keegan,
SVP & Head of Product
Business EMEIA, Fujitsu,
comments,
We
are
building servers that
customers can bet their
business on. The new-

generation of servers are

the highest performance
x86 servers ever produced
by Fujitsu underlining
their position as the
bedrock
on
which
organizations can build
their digitally transformed
business. We are seeing
more and more customers
modernizing their UNIXbased systems.

Check Point 770 and 790

to deliver security

heck
Point
S o f t w a r e
Technologies Ltd has
announced two new
additions to the Check
Point 700 Series appliances,
both
addressing
the
unique security needs
of small businesses. The
new Check Point 770 and
790 appliances, together
with the 730 and 750,
provide advanced threat
prevention features such as
firewall, VPN, antivirus,
anti-bot,
application
control, URL filtering
and email security. In
addition, the appliances

deliver
optimized
network performance of
up to 4 Gbps of firewall
throughput and up to
330 Mbps when threat
prevention functions are
activated.
Gabi Reish, VP of
Product
Management,
Check Point, said, The
770 and 790 extend the
capabilities of our 700
Series appliance family,
providing the advanced
protection necessary to
protect small business
customer networks from
threats and unnecessary
exposure.

NetApp announces ONTAP 9

etApp
has
announced
the launch of NetApp
ONTAP 9 operating
system, an enterprise
data management
software
that
combines
new
levels of simplicity
and flexibility with
powerful capabilities and
efficiencies. With ONTAP
9 software, enterprises
can quickly integrate the
best of traditional and
emerging
technologies,
incorporating flash, the
cloud and software-defined
architectures to build a
Data Fabric foundation
across on-premises and
cloud resources.
NetApps release of

the industrys first 15TB

flash drive, combined
with
new
storage
efficiency
technology
features in ONTAP 9,

continues to drive that

cost down in a flashoptimized,
enterpriseclass storage platform that
is well suited for the type
of dense mixed workload
consolidation
that
customers are increasingly
looking to their trusted
suppliers to deliver, said
Eric Burgener, Research
Director for IDCs Storage
Practice.

FACE TO FACE

Koinca Minolta transforming

into a Service Provider
In a chat with VARINDIA, V. Balakrishnan, Executive General Manager of Konica Minolta Business Solutions
India, speaks about the companys transformation from a hardware-centric company to a service provider, the
response they have received about their new Educo ERP Software and also about their strategy
acquisitions but also on the licence renewals.
It is about sustaining the relationship with all
the people in the value chain. So that value
chain is nurtured and more value is created.

Kindly brief us on Educo ERP

software?
Educo ERP is a Cloud-based service and
it can be operated with just a browser. This
has been developed after years of research
keeping in view our users requirements.
Typically if you consider education ERP,
the stakeholders are the management or
administrators of the school or the institution,
teachers, students and the parents. Now each
of them has a different requirement. It enables
them to reduce their workload. It has been
designed for a holistic approach to the entire
ecosystem, meeting the requirements of all
the stakeholders and, most importantly, it
is Cloud based. The data is secured on very
high secured servers. It is hosted by Amazon
service and is accessible from anywhere.
Educo ERP comes in an affordable price
for schools, colleges, universities, training
centres, online group, institutions, seminaries
and e-governance preschools.
It is a new beginning for us and our
objective is to spread it as far and wide as
possible. Our entire focus in the development
of the software was on user experience.

How do you find the Indian

market for Educo ERP software?

The Indian market is very positive as we

are receiving many enquiries from schools
and institutions. Our product has a variety
of modules which can cater to all kinds of
schools and educational institutions. So,
they have appreciated it and the price is also
very reasonable and affordable.
We are able to engage because the
commercial offerings that we have are
scalable. We have received more than 100
queries and people are already using the
software, a few of them are also converted.
So they tried, understood, agreed and now
they are on the deployment stage. The
customers are satisfied with our products,
but there are some requests to modify a few
parts. This is one of our advantages that we
are able to customize the solutions according
to their needs.

Why you have shifted your

focus on software segment from
printing? What is the future of the
printing industry?

Minolta to support education.

We have some differential points like
price affordability, scalability. We also have
pan-India coverage. Most of the competitions
cover some areas of the country, but
Konica Minolta has the pan-India coverage
advantage.

What about the after sales

What kind of channel strategy
support?
are you following?
Many discussions are going on with
SIs, but we have our direct Salesforce. We
have employed dedicated salespersons and
marketing support persons for the products.
Also, as India is a huge country and we
are not able to cover it completely, we are
collaborating with partners of IT business
and SIs who are in the education sector. It is
primarily leveraging both our direct presence
and Partners associated with education
sector. We would have some accounts where
our people will be directly present but we
will also have people who will support our
partners to close their cases.

Why are you focussing on the

education sector only? What
What kind of opportunities do
strategy are you following?
your partners have?
The education market is very huge and
India has the largest working population. The
market itself is growing. We want to support
education because we believe that education
is one of the most important drivers which
boosts the economy of the country. This is
in line with the corporate policy of Konica

Konica Minolta is a manufacturing

company which produces hardware like
printers and MFPs. But we want to transform
ourselves from manufacturers to service
providers which deal with the challenges of the
customers which include printing, document
management, information management, etc.
The time that manufacturer can satisfy its
customers with only hardware is over.
We want to be the supplier and partner of
the customers to support all kinds of office
work, including printing, data management,
document management, etc.
So how do we become more meaningful
to our customers is primary and not limiting
it to just with the one domain.
The printing industry in India is growing.
It is true that in countries like Japan, USA, the
print volume is saturated and not growing.
But India is one of the very few countries
where printing business is increasing and I
believe this trend will continue for the next
ten years.

At the end of the day, it depends on the

number of licences they are able to sell. From
our perspective, it is a continuing relationship
and not just acquiring an account. We would
like our partners to be able to strengthen
their relationship with their accounts so that
the opportunities are not just about initial

We have a support portal. If the user

sends a mail to the portal, it automatically
generates a ticket and it goes to the agent
who will call back and provide support
to the customer. The support is a remote
service, we also provide a call support, Skype
support, TeamViewer support, chat support
and over and above if the user wants an onsite
support, we also provide it for a small fee.

What is the roadmap of the

company?
The existing version will get upgraded
later during this year and because it is
on servers, all existing customers will be
automatically upgraded. As and when our
new version is released it is an automatic
upgrade to everybody who is using the
software. As we will add more elements,
those will also be available to them. So, there
are some schedules later during the year. n

www.varindia.com

June 2016

19

ON THE RAMP

Symantec makes web

security service available

ymantec
has
announced
the
availability of Encryption
Everywhere, a website
security package
available
t h r o u g h
web
hosting
providers.
With the new
web
security
service, hosting
providers can
offer a variety of flexible
options, including basic
website
encryption
included as part of any
hosted service, and a
number of premium

security packages with

increasingly stronger levels
of website validation,
protection, and trust seals.
There
are
almost a billion
websites today,
yet only about
3% of those sites
are encrypted,
which means
cybercriminals
have been able
to make a good living off of
the webs lack of security,
said Roxane Divol, Senior
Vice-President & General
Manager,
Website
Security, Symantec.

Juniper Networks extends

its product portfolio

uniper Networks
has extended its
product portfolio with
two new EX Series access
switches. The switches are
expected to enable secure,
simplified management
for campus and branch
networks, regardless of
size and complexity. The
EX2300, an entry-level
switch, and EX3400, a
mid-range switch, offer
new options for companies
to
leverage
Juniper
Networks Unite for a
cloud-enabled enterprise,
including Junos Fusion
Enterprise and Juniper

Networks Virtual Chassis

technology to streamline
network
provisioning
through a single point of
management.
The new switches
provide SMEs with an
easy-to-manage network
solution,
liberating
overextended IT resources
to concentrate on highimpact projects. The
new access switches also
give large enterprises
greater flexibility needed
to significantly scale
operations and implement
resource-intensive
IT
projects.

QNAP Launches Thunderbolt

2 NAS TVS-x82T Series

NAP Systems
has announced
the release of its nextgeneration,
highperformance Thunderbolt
2 NAS TVS-x82T series.
It is available in three
different models TVS1282T, TVS-882T and
TVS-682T.
With
upgraded
hardware and software
features, the TVS-x82T
series is a huge step above
the previous QNAP
Thunderbolt 2 NAS and
the three different models
provide greater choice for
a wider range of users,
said David Tsao, Product

20

June 2016

Manager, QNAP. The

TVS-x82T provides tiered
storage, application-based
partitioning, and network
traffic distribution to
optimize the efficiency of
different NAS applications
and provides businesses
with an ideal storage
solution for intensive
virtualization,
video
surveillance storage, highresolution video editing,
and much more.

www.varindia.com

Radware
Panasonic Introduces MB500 Series
anasonic
has
expands Cloud
announced
the
P
launch of its multiSecurity Services functional printer (MFP)
MB500 series. The MB500
Portfolio
series is the latest product

o
safeguard
businesses from
evolving cyber threats,
Radware has expanded
its portfolio of Cloud
Security Services to ensure
optimal service level for
applications in virtual,
cloud
and
softwaredefined data centers.
This
new
Cloud
Security Service offering
is an adaptive solution
that combines cloud
DDoS, volumetric, and
application
firewall
attack protection into
a configuration that is
unique to the clients
needs, whether that is an
always-on, on-demand, or
hybrid solution.

GIGABYTE
Launches
Designare
Motherboards

G I G A B Y T E
TECHNOLOGY
has
announced its new X99Designare EX and Z170XDesignare motherboards
based on the Intel X99 and
Z170 chipsets with support
for Intels 5th and current,
6th Gen. Core processor,
respectively.
The
Designare motherboards
offer a blend of the latest
technologies that will
ensure creativity is never
placed on hold.
"We
understand
that the 3D modellers,
engineers, and content
creators of this world
require the most advanced
technology they can get
their hands on to help
create a better world,
commented
Henry
Kao, Vice President of
GIGABYTE Motherboard
Business Unit. With the
X99-Designare EX and
the
Z170X-Designare,
weve put together a
combination of innovative
features which results in a
product that truly let the
creative minds bring their
projects to reality.

in Panasonics burgeoning
portfolio of products
aimed at creating solutions
in the enterprise space.
Through MB500 series,
Panasonic aims to makes
its presence felt in the A3
Printing segment.
The MB500 line of
multi-functional printer
(MFP) comes with a whole
host of features which,
apart from including
printing size up to A3,
also comes with copy size
up to Legal and Scan, Fax,

RADF and Wi-Fi are all

seamlessly geared towards
Enterprise,
SMEs,
Government, Corporate
and Rentals. Considering
the diverse range of
features, the MFPs comes
at a relative affordable
cost with a starting price
at Rs. 46,000.

Riverbed enhances SteelCentral

i v e r b e d
Technology
has
announced
new
enhancements
to
SteelCentral
that
bring major advances
to
troubleshooting
capabilities
and
improved
monitoring
across the cloud while
simultaneously improving
ease-of-use and scalability.
These
enhancements
continue
to
support
a common theme of
improved
SteelCentral
platform
integration
while enhancing several
critical capabilities.
"This
release
of
SteelCentral
delivers

significant enhancements
in
cloud-based
performance monitoring,
along with new capabilities
that will help accelerate
business execution and
boost productivity. As
more enterprises embrace
digital and cloud services,
SteelCentral provides the
high-definition visibility
that is critical to enabling
and assuring the success
of these transformational
initiatives. It truly is
the command centre for
application performance
for the digital enterprise,"
said Mike Sargent, SVP,
General
Manager
of
SteelCentral, Riverbed.

Kingston launches its

UV400 SSD in India

ingston
has
announced the
launch of its affordable
UV400 Solid-State Drive
in India. The ultra-value
UV400 SSD allows fast
boot times, application
loading and file transfers
for mainstream users at
a great price point. It is
powered by a four-channel
controller for incredible
speeds of up to 550MB/s
read and 500MB/s write,
and is 10x faster than a
7,200RPM hard-disk drive
(HDD). With an MRP
of Rs.5,999/- for 120GB
capacity and Rs.10,000/-

for
240GB
capacity,
the UV400 SSD will be
available in all the leading
Indian retail and e-tail
stores in India.
We are proud to
bring UV400 to this
market allowing users
of all levels to replace
their current mechanical
hard drives with an SSD
and see the benefits of
higher performance, said
Nathan Su, Flash Memory
Sales Director, APAC
Region, Kingston.

VOICE-N-DATA

IoT connected devices to grow

iUNIR and Ozone NETGEAR R6400 AC1750 Router
annually - Ericsson Mobility Report Wi-Fi join hands to enhance Wi-Fi Speed

n
the
latest
published Ericsson
Mobility Report, the
company has revealed
that the latest consumer
trends and India-specific
data points. The report
has highlighted that the
Internet of Things (IoT)
is set to overtake mobile
phones as the largest
category of connected
device by 2018.
Between 2015 and
2021, the number of
IoT-connected devices is
expected to grow 23 per
cent annually, of which
cellular IoT is forecast to

have the highest growth

rate. Of the 28 billion
total devices that will be
connected by 2021, closeto 16 billion will be IoT
devices.
Western Europe will
lead the way in adding
IoT connections the
number of IoT devices in
this market is projected
to grow 400 per cent
by 2021. This will
principally be driven by
regulatory requirements
and a growing demand for
connected cars, including
the EU e-call directive to
be implemented in 2018.

Brocade completes acquisition

of Ruckus Wireless

rocade
has
completed
the
acquisition of Ruckus
Wireless. This represents
an important step in
Brocade's strategic vision
to build a pure-play
networking
company
that supports the rapidlyevolving requirements of
the digital transformation
era.
"The
combined
company will be able to
deliver superior focus
and speed of innovation
and best-in-class solutions
spanning the full spectrum
of
networking.
Our

combined
world-class
portfolio now provides
customers with greater
flexibility in meeting
today's
infrastructure
requirements, including
high-performance,
flexible, secure access
networks. We are thrilled
to welcome the Ruckus
team to Brocade and
look forward to working
together to help our
customers transform their
networks into an open
platform for business
innovation," said Lloyd
Carney, CEO, Brocade.

Airtel initiates Open Network

to serve customers better

harti Airtel (Airtel)

has
announced
a new initiative Open
Network under Project
Leap, its national network
transformation initiative.
Airtel has opened
up its entire mobile
network information to
its customers through
an interactive online
interface.
The
new
interface will display
Airtels mobile network
coverage/signal strength
across India, in addition to
network site deployment
status.
Gopal Vittal, MD &

22

June 2016

CEO (India and South

Asia),
Bharti
Airtel,
said, Open Network
is a paradigm shift in
the way we engage with
our customers. With
this initiative, we are
establishing
complete
transparency with regards
to our mobile network
and opening ourselves
to customer scrutiny
and feedback. For us,
the network experience
is paramount and Airtel
customers can now take
charge of network issues
and be a part of the
solution."

www.varindia.com

iUNIR and Ozone

Networks have tied up to
provide improved service
to business houses and
educational
institutes.
This alliance will help
iUNIR in accomplishing
their
objective
of
developing a greener and
a more connected society
through eco-ride share
and Ozone networks shall
add by providing free
Wi-Fi to all people and
communities connected.
At such a crucial
juncture, iUNIR has
come as a saviour with a
unique idea of community
pooling. iUNIR and
Ozone
together
are
committed boost safe
and eco-friendly travel,
besides reducing the
commute time. Ozone
shall provide free WiFi services to businesses
opting to work with
iUNIR which, in turn,
allows a free download
option on Ozone Wi-Fi
services.

QuadGen with
BSNL to bring 5G
Wi-Fi in India

u a d G e n
Networks
Pvt. Ltd has raised an
undisclosed amount, as
part of its Series A round
of financing. IndusAge
Partners led this round
of financing. Trinity
Mobility also participated
in this financing.
C.S Rao, Chairman
and
Co-Founder
of
QuadGen
said,
Broadband Connectivity
is a critical ingredient
for the realization of
the Digital India Vision.
QuadGen is committed
to expanding its network
and enabling high speed
connectivity through its
carrier grade WiFi offering
to Government Offices,
Courts,
Educational
institutions, Banks, Rural
and Public spaces and
thus pave the way for
next generation Digital
infrastructure."

ETGEAR has
launched
its
R6400 AC1750 Smart WiFi Router which offers
faster internet access. It
comes with a new design
that includes high power
amplifiers,
external
antennas and Airtime
Fairness,
combined
with
implicit
and
explicit
Beamforming,
boosts routers WiFi
performance at long range
by up to 80 percent over
its predecessors. It is also
packed with features such
as new remote network
management via the

NETGEAR genie app

and a SuperSpeed USB 3.0
port.
With AC1750 Wi-Fi,
Gigabit Ethernet speeds,
and three high-powered
external antennas, the
NETGEAR
AC1750
(R6400) Smart Wi-Fi
Router offers enhanced
performance.

RI Networks announces
Broadband Services under timbl
RI Networks has
launched its broadband
services in Delhi/ NCR
market under brand name
timbl. RI Networks holds
a national category A
ISP licences for internet
services. The company
will initially focus on
providing
broadband
services
for
Homes,
Small Offices and Small
Enterprise customers, and
also offers Internet Leased
Lines and Datacentre
Services for Enterprise
Customers. In the first
phase, the services are
being offered in the

Delhi/ NCR market

and will gradually be
offere. The company is
looking at investing over
Rs.15 crore in network
deployment and brand
building
during
FY
2016-17. The broadband
services are affordably
priced from Rs.550/month onwards for a 10
Mbps connection.
timbl offers super
high-speed
broadband,
at speeds starting with
10 Mbps, with best-inclass services over Fibre
to the Neighbourhood
networks.

Telenor India completes Largest

Commercial Deployment

elenor
has
completed
the
largest
commercial
deployment of Huaweis
Blade Site wireless basestation solution in India.
Between November 2015
and April 2016, more
than 10,000 new sites
were installed across
Telenors six circles with
the solution. This is the
fastest-ever deployment of
the blade site solution.
Telenor India has
selected Huawei Blade Site
Solution to be future ready
and meet the growing
demand for improved

voice and data services.

Telenor currently has
52.4 million subscribers.
The new network can
support latest mobile
technology,
including
4G / LTE services.
Tanveer
Mohammad,
COO, Telenor (India)
Communications,
said,
Telenor is committed to
extend benefits of affordable
mobile broadband network
to enrich lives of our
customers."

VAR SPEAK

Red Hat takes Partner

Business to New Heights

We all know that customers spearhead the success of any organisation. It is they and their user experience that are instrumental for the
success of any product. But apart from customers and products, the success of any organisation lies in the hands of its partners. Partners
indeed play a major role in the growth a company in the market. It is also true that support of the vendor to partners is equally important
to make a relationship meaningful, which will eventually result in the success of the products. So every thread is intertwined to achieve
success.
Red Hat understands very well that, to develop a technology, it is important to build a community around it. The company follows the
same approach while expanding the partner ecosystem by delivering this technology and its value to enterprise customers by building an
enabled and engaged partner ecosystem. For partners, the Red Hat Partner Programme shows new avenues of market opportunity. They get
access to the major community of open-source solutions.
Red Hat always understands the progressive needs of its partners, which helps in collaboration and success of both partners and the
company. Not just a partner-focussed vendor, for Red Hat, partners are very crucial as they are instrumental in capturing new markets and
providing coverage to the company. It considers its partners as growth drivers. The company has an ecosystem of 2,500 ISV partners and
about 5,000 applications.
The partners who are associated with the company have witnessed growth in their business with a wide array of products from Red Hat.
The companys wide product portfolio includes platform, virtualization, cloud and middleware cover all the customers demands. Moreover,
it also opens the avenue to provide services to customers as well as partners, and as it is a subscription based business, the renewal of
subscrition is another opportunity to extend business. Apart from heavily incentivizing partners, the company also helps them by investing
in pre-sales. All these factors together go to prove Red Hat as the most admired vendor to partner with.

Association with Red Hat

For us, the addition of Red Hat to our portfolio has been a great partnership. It is of
more than two years of association with Red Hat so far and our business has been growing
ever since we partnered with Red Hat. Today, we firmly believe in Red Hat, its offerings,
its technologies and our customers have always been talking to us about what else we can do
along with Red Hat. So, this has been an extremely positive relationship having a positive
impact, both for us and as well as for our customers, said Keshav Prakash, Founder &
Owner, DEVTOOLS.

Benefits of partnering with Red Hat

Our relationship with Red Hat started very early when the company came into India
and since then we have been working with Red Hat. We are working with the company
primarily in three areas platform where there is server operating systems, virtualization
and middleware.
Red Hat helps both in top and bottom line. If I go with Red Hat, they have full code of
services like platform, middleware, virtualization and cloud. On top of that, you can provide
your services like in the case of a finance client, where we are maintaining all the Red Hat
servers. If there is any development in the platform, since we are a Red Hat partner they
prefer to go along with development through us also. There is a very strong deal registration.
Once I register a deal with Red Hat, then the company works very closely with us. They do
not go with any other partner and they incentivize very heavily on deals which have a large
value propositions. Even Red Hat is ready to invest a lot on pre-sales.
Red Hat is a subscription- and services-based business, so it is a long-term business. So
once an organization takes a subscrition, then for 7-8 years they do not require anything and
normally services are on the house, said Mukul Mahajan, Director & Co-Founder, Tetra
Information Services.

Revenue and Profitability

When it is an open-source solution, your cost comes down drastically. For a partner, the
opportunity lies immensely on the services. You start riding on that immediately because
you know it absolutely fits the budget, it fits the need of the customer from a technology
and a solution perspective. Now there is a whole world open for you to offer your services.
That is where you add value. You always thought as an entrepreneur to build which adds
value to your customer environment, said Abhishek Sharma, Vice-President Strategic
Business, Silver Leaf.

www.varindia.com

June 2016

23

CHANNEL BUZZ

Axis communications announces

winners at Axis Partner Summit 2016

Huawei strengthens its Partner relations

at SEA Core Partner Convention

Axis
Communications
has announced the winners
of its annual Axis Channel
Partner Summit awards, held in
Singapore on May 17-18, 2016. 18
channel partners were felicitated
at the award ceremony across six
categories.
Axis has around 80,000

Huawei has organized its

fourth edition of the SEA Core
Partner Convention 2016. In
the convention, the company
demonstrated its focus of putting
Quality first while striving
towards continuous business
excellence and faster delivery,
showcasing the importance of its

as Sri Lanka attended the Summits

keynotes to understand Huaweis
stance on Transparency, Quality,
and new initiatives. Huawei also
felicitated its partners with gold
and silver awards under Delivery
Excellence, Best Compliance on
EHS & Quality and Emerging
Partners categories. As a unique

growing number of partners to

do so. As part of the convention,
Huawei reiterated its commitment
and focus towards partners
through its various initiatives and
programmes. Huawei Delivery &
Services business group covers a
huge workforce of key partners
with over 1,400 teams across
India.
Over 300 delegates comprising
of partners management from
across key centres in India as well

initiative, Huawei also recognized

individual on-field heroes.
Jay Chen, CEO, Huawei
India, said, Our aim is to create
a simple, clear engagement and
support structure, through a
multi-partner
management
organization. The SEA core
partner convention enables us
to offer a more collaborative and
stable partnership which will be
mutually beneficial for Huawei
and our esteemed partners.

channel partners globally, and

channel partnerships have played
a key role for the companys
success.
Through various
programs and training courses the
company supports its partners
to ensure that end customers
security installations are at the

cutting edge of whats available

in the market. Axis channel
partners are like an extended
team and working closely with
them provides valuable insights
into the needs and opportunities
across individual markets as
well as in target end customer
segments.

The partner summit is

organised every year in order to
felicitate and acknowledge the
contribution and work done
by the channel partners. This
year the event was held in Hotel
Shangri La, Singapore and the
summit addressed partners across
the APAC region.

Sophos concludes Discover

Sophos 2016 in Bali
Sophos
has
organized
Discover Sophos 2016 Conference
in Bali from 17th to 20th May.
The event brought together key
partners from Asia-Pacific and
Japan (APJ), including 80 of
Sophos key partners from India.
The APJ Conference in Bali was
the final of Sophos three annual
partner conferences this year.
Sophos senior management
team including Chief Executive
Officer Kris Hagerman, Senior
Vice-President Worldwide Sales
Mike Valentine, Chief Marketing
Officer Matt Fairbanks, Chief
Technology Officer Joe Levy and
Vice-President Global Channel
Sales Kendra Krause, delivered
keynote sessions on Sophos
strategy, its partner commitments
and the broader future of the IT
security industry, in front of over
500 people attending the Sophos
partner event.
Sophos builds solutions to
address the challenges of small
and mid-market enterprises which
make a sizeable contribution
to the regional economy. Our
solutions are simple to deploy,
maintain and manage and provide

24

June 2016

comprehensive protection to
such organizations. Sophos has
a channel first strategy and our
partners play a crucial role in the
success of our company. Sophos
Discover 2016 gave us a platform
to celebrate our success and plan
the way forward into FY 17, said
Sunil Sharma, Vice-President
Sales, India and SAARC, Sophos.
Acknowledging
partners
significant
contribution
to
business in India, Sophos has
awarded Technoware Systems
the Top Performer of the Year
award and Spark Technologies
the Sub-Distributor of the Year
award for demonstrating strong
commitment and dedication
towards selling Sophos.

www.varindia.com

Gates to conduct 2nd ICT Reseller

Channel Summit in Bengaluru
GATES
APAC
has
announced the second edition of
the India ICT Reseller Channel
Summit 2016 to be held between
4th - 6th of October this year
in Bangalore. Following its
successful launch edition early
in Feb 2016, the summit will
provide a robust platform for the
ICT ecosystem and present an
excellent opportunity to expand
business in a continuously
disrupted industry.
The Summit shall aim to set
the stage for many vendors and
channel partners from all over
India to complete the present
financial year business and also to
plan for the upcoming business
fiscal year. Totally aimed at
business expansion through
a combination of knowledge
sharing, networking, and fruitful
business discussions, the Summit
will emerge as one of the crucial
events for the ICT & Mobility
diaspora in India.
Ashish Kapahi, CEO at
GATES APAC said, The first
edition of the ICT Summit was
a tremendous success and truly
appreciated by the industry.
It gave us the strength to hold

another summit in this year itself.

The summits uniqueness in its
format was well received by the
vendors as well as the channel
community. Continuing our
commitment to the industry, the
Bengaluru Summit will accelerate
the business activity during the
vital quarter Q4 for the ICT
ecosystem.
The first edition of the event
was attended by over 250 top
executives from 60 plus cities in
India representing 178 companies;
The Summit attracted players
beyond just ICT industry.
More than 800 pre-scheduled
one-on-one meetings facilitated
many new business agreements
resulting in vendors being able to
tap into untapped potential in the
country.

PRODUCT OF THE MONTH

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www.varindia.com

June 2016

25

MARKET WATCH

Enabling the e-commerce ecosystem

with sales enablement methodologies
Enough has been spoken about the
e-commerce boom in India. Albeit the recent
roadblocks, the Indian e-commerce sector is
expected to cross the 100 million mark by
the end of 2016.As per eMarketer, a market
research firm, globally the ecommerce sales
will reach a $3.5 trillion within the next five
years. It is the technology platform which
will provide 12.4% of global retail sales by
2019. Indian economy which is one of the
fastest growing economies in the world
indeed has a major share to contribute in
the mentioned statistics. Thus it becomes
inevitable for the e-commerce platforms to
widen their market, increase the trade flow
and enable their sales.
Sales enablement, through a combination
of sales methodologies and processes, then
plays a vital role in enabling e-commerce
companies by helping get trade closer to
them and widening the marketplace. The
issues faced by the Indian ecommerce giants
can be sorted out ably if only the right
sales enablement solutions are applied.
These enablement methodologies range
frompartner/ merchant acquisition to
customer relationship management; from
skilling the ecosystem to customer adoption.
Let us understand these sales enablement
methodologies individually in context of the
e-commerce sector.
Partner/ merchant acquisition: To
accelerate consumer activity e-commerce
companies are always on the lookout for
on-boarding merchants/retailers on their
platform. The important measure here is
coverage and volume of merchants/retailers
on-boarded within a specific time period.
In a diverse geography like India this is not
an easy job. It requires consistent reach
and evangelizing effort. Some relevant sales
enablement methodologies to drive this are:
Feet-On-Street - This essentially
entails driving touch points and experience.A
strong sales force on feet who are the deal
pioneers in a sense will drive the sales vision.
Unless you have got deal pioneers, your
e-commerce venture will be miss opening
doors.
Telesales - This is specifically for the
products which are largely virtual experience
or technology- driven.The approach of the
telesales agent is the most crucial and yet most
reliable part of your e-commerce ecosystem.
Digital marketingAs they say,
there's no point talking #shawarma to a
#vegan. It is about exploiting what's in
demand and understand partner interests
and behaviour. Digital marketing campaigns
can drive partner acquisition strategies in the
most effective and targeted manner.
Marketing activations This broadly
involves driving engagement in partner

26

June 2016

www.varindia.com

Snehashish Bhattacharjee
Global CEO & CoFounder - Denave
hubs.It is about creating touch-points and
marketing activations are effective in that
sense.
Customer registration: The next
area where sale enablement can play an
important role is in helping drive customer
registrations. This is the first step towards
building a large prospective customer base.
Leveraging sales enablement can help in
reaching out and understanding the customer
and attracting them to the platform. It gives
favorable environment to the e-commerce
retailers to tweak their database basis
the client/ customers perspective and
preferences. It makes the experience for the
customer smoother which in turn serves as
an attractive proposition. The common sales
enablement methodologies involved here are
those of telesales, BTL activities and digital
marketing.
Telesales-Telesales
providesa
quicker response, higher ROIs and greater
geographical reach. This is especially effective
in a B2B e-commerce scenario.
Marketing activation- Customer
registrations for e-commerce portals can be
effectively driven by marketing activations.
With effective customer engagement, it has
the potential to provide quicker returns.
This works in both B2B and B2C focused
e-commerce platforms.
Digital marketing- With pointed
campaigns, customer registrations for
e-commerce platforms can be increased.
This is most effective in a B2C e-commerce
platform.
Customer adoption: Once the
customer registration happens, the bigger
challenge is to drive adoption and loyalty for
the e-commerce platform. One of the toughest

challenges faced by the sales and marketing

team is to get higher traffic on their portals.
It all boils down to generating awareness and
powerful information dissemination driven
byengaging sales enablement methods such
as:
FOSDriving adoption is about
regular engagement and customer nurturing.
Showcasing the value and the relevance of
the products/ services in the platform can be
done effective by the feet-on-street soldiers.
Telesales- Talking about engagement,
tele based methods are also effective sales
enablement implementation methodology
to create that one-on-one connect with the
customer across geographies.
Skilling the ecosystem/ partner readiness:
In this new ecosystem, partners need to be
aligned with the new ways of doing things.
This is about improving the ecosystem
preparedness for selling in the e-commerce
ecosystem. Readiness programs including
communication engine, readiness engine and
engagement engine is of prime importance
here. Sales enablement aids this by providing
sales training. As a powerful means of
developing the sales force and sales managers,
it builds critical skills and knowledge
for long-term success. The objective of
training is to impart a simple message,
ensure its consistency, and track the impact.
Training can be deployed through various
methodologies - classroom training, remote
training, on-the-job training, e-learning, etc.
and each method equips the sales force to
perform better.
E-learning platforms- Truly a sales
initiator, e-learning platform provides a cost
effective solution for the partners.
Face-to-face training methods like
on-the-job training- Though the advantages
of digital and e-platforms cannot be denied,
we need to remember that interaction (faceto-face in particular) is crucial. This involves
on-the-job training for sales. This works
best when the ecosystem is in clusters and
physical coverage is not difficult.
Remote training-Tele-led training,
webinars, pod casts, simulations, audio- video
broadcasts, online testing and feedbacks etc.
are various methods of remote training
which keep the representative abreast with
latest innovation and developments which
come in handy for enabling the e-commerce
ecosystem.
In view of the above, enabling the
e-commerce ecosystem via sales enablement
then is a simple and direct approach and yet
complex in terms of their implementation if
the understanding is not correct. E-commerce
companies can take their success story to the
next level by applying right sales enablement
methodologies. n

14th VARINDIA IT Forum 2016 :

Helping Build the Digital India Vision

[From L-R : Mr. Ravi S. Pani, Vice President-SPO INDIA, Ms. S. Mohini Ratna, Editor, VARINDIA, Mr. Deepak
Kumar Sahu, Publisher & Chief Editor, Kalinga Digital Media & VARINDIA, Mr. R. K Bhatnagar, Director General
TEPC, Mr. Rudra Murthy K.G, CISO, Digital India programme, Ministry of Home GOI, Mr. Vipin Tyagi, ED, C-Dot,
Mr. Vishwanath Kulkarni, Director of Sales, Physical Access Control, India and SAARC, HID Global, Mr Shankar
Aggarwal, Secretary, Labour and Employment, Government of India, Mr. Arvind Saxena, Group Marketing
Head Sify Technologies Limited, Mr. Sanjeev Sehgal, M.D. - Samridhi Automations and Mr. Gaurav Agarwal,
Operations Director, Public Sector Cisco Systems]

Mr. Kiran Karnik, Former President,

NASSCOM
When the CSR law first came into force,
many of my friends in the industry regarded
it as being useless. They are of the opinion
that CSR is something that comes out of
profit and should be left to us whether we
want to do anything for the society or not.
The govt. should not be putting any mandates
on this. But members from the community
service organizations feel that companies
make lots of profit and dont do anything
for the community. Many saw it as a good
opportunity for flowing money into NGOs
and the CSO sector, which was always starved
of funds. But there are still issues that need to
be sorted out in terms of putting the law into
place.

A day full of Technical keynote sessions,

corporate presentations, discourses on
issues impacting the technology landscape,
business networking have what turned
14th VARINDIA IT Forum 2016 into a
grand success. It served as a platform for
the convergence of the whos who of the
ICT industry, Corporates, IT consultants
and various government agencies and PSUs.
The Annual Forum this year was divided
into three sessions CSR & Sustainability
Summit which formed the morning session
and the Information Technology Forum
which consisted of both the afternoon and
the evening sessions. The evening session
also saw the unveiling of the 5th edition of
the Brand Book.
The day-long event kick-started with the
morning session titled CSR & Sustainability
Summit that had the active participation
from corporates, social foundations,
NGOs and different government bodies.
The Summit reinforced the fact that CSR
has, indeed, come a long way in India and
that Information Technology is a primary
catalyst that is driving this unprecedented
growth.
Mr. Kiran Karnik, Former President,
NASSCOM, was a Special Guest joining the
session along with Mr. Shrikant Sinha, CEO,
NASSCOM Foundation who wooed the

Mr. Shrikant Sinha, CEO - NASSCOM

Foundation
What is important to understand today
is that even after 69 years of independence,
the scenario has not changed much; we still
have 1 NGO for 535 people. I think it is time
to look for things differently, look at how
corporates can play a role in CSR by bringing
their policies and processes and ensure that
the beneficiaries who are there on the ground
actually benefit out of it. And that is the crux
of Section 135 that has helped us not only
to get things in perspective, but now we are
looking at philanthropy by getting meaningful
activities done. Today there is a challenge and
to address it people need to get associated
with technology. This is where NASSCOM
Foundation does it part by working with the
Government of India in the National Digital
Literacy Mission.

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EVENT
audience with his remarkable presentation
on what NASSCOM Foundation has been
doing to promote a sustainable society in
the country.
Other dignitaries who graced the
occasion were Mr. Chharudutta Panigrahi,
President, FIDR; Ms. Meenu Bhambhani,
VP & Head CSR, Mphasis; Mr.
Mahantesh G K, Founder, Samarthanam
Trust; Mr. Anup K. Srivastava, CEO, Skills
Council for Persons with Disabilities;
Mr. Santosh Abraham, AVP, NASSCOM
Foundation; Ms. Manju Dhasmana, CSR
Head, Microsoft; Mr. Anurag Pratap, CSR
Head, Capgemini; Mr. Deepak Maheshwari,
Director, Government Affairs, India and
ASEAN, Symantec; Ms. Meenakshi Batra,
CEO, Charities Aid Foundation and Mr.
Ravi S. Pani, Vice-President, SPO India.

Mr Deepak Kumar Sahu, Publisher &

Chief Editor, VARINDIA, while giving is
inaugural address

Deepak Kumar Sahu, Publisher and

President, SPO India, in his welcome
speech talked about how the total CSR
spend has increased by 27% in 2015, and
India has now the highest CSR reporting
rate worldwide. It is a good thing that
the disclosure of CSR activities has been
made compulsory. A report says that the
performance of Indian origin companies
is far ahead compared to foreign-based
companies operating in India. According to
the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs, a
minimum of 6,000 Indian companies will
be required to undertake CSR projects in
order to comply with the provisions of the
Companies Act, 2013, with many of the
companies undertaking these initiatives for
the first time.

Session - 1 Employability-driven Skills for Persons with Disabilities

From L-R: Ms. Meenu Bhambhani, VP and Head CSR, Mphasis, Mr. Mahantesh G K, Founder, Samarthanam
Trust, Mr. Chharudutta Panigrahi, President, FIDR and Mr. Anup K Srivastava, CEO, Skills Council for Persons with
Disabilities]
The first discussion was modelled around Employability-driven Skills for Persons with Disabilities that was moderated by Mr.
Chharudutta Panigrahi, President, FIDR, and the panel was joined in by Ms. Meenu Bhambhani, VP & Head CSR, Mphasis; Mr. Mahantesh
G K, Founder, Samarthanam Trust and Mr. Anup K. Srivastava, CEO, Skills Council for Persons with Disabilities.
India has more than 1 crore people with disabilities who are either non-working or are marginal workers. There is a huge demand for them
to be mainstream. The discussion was an attempt to address the different initiatives taken by the govt. and how companies have started inducting
people with disabilities in their workforce. Mr. Chharudutta Panigrahi, President, FIDR started off the discussion saying that after the coming
of CSR to the fold of national development, there have been three arms the govt., civil society and now the strong focus of CSR. He also
emphasized that when talking about CSR as an added advantage, it also clears the picture of the preparedness of the companies and the industry
in general to work with people with disabilities.
Ms. Meenu Bhambhani, VP & Head CSR, Mphasis discussed at length the investments her company made into different disability related
programs and how it took a very different emphasis as a key strategic focus of CSR. The broad focus being technology driven community
development, inclusion and livelihood which are also the 3 sectors within which the company has included disability. The key take-away from
her speech was why disability was relegated to diversity.
Mr Mahantesh G K, Founder, Samarthanam Trust introduced his organization to be close to 20 years old. Initially it started promoting
cricket and higher education for visually impaired, but later as a founder he has realized that unless self employment is promoted, every
rehabilitation programs, schemes will go in vain.
Mr. Anup K. Srivastava, CEO, Skills Council for Persons with Disabilities on the other hand said that there are disabilities in both physical
and mental form and the percentage varies. He stressed on the fact that we all are born with some disabilities; while it is true that it is visible in
some and not visible in the rest. It has to be kept in mind while going forward that we all are same.

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[From L-R : Ms. Meenakshi Batra, CEO, Charities Aid Foundation, Mr. Santosh Abraham, AVP, NASSCOM Foundation,
Mr. Anurag Pratap, CSR Head, Capgemini and Ms. Manju Dhasmana, CSR Head, Microsoft]

Session - 2 CSR Models Managing for Impact

The second discussion CSR Models Managing for Impact was chaired by Mr. Santosh Abraham, AVP, NASSCOM Foundation, and
the speakers who were called in to take the discussion forward were Ms. Manju Dhasmana, CSR Head, Microsoft; Mr. Anurag Pratap, CSR
Head, Capgemini and Ms. Meenakshi Batra, CEO, Charities Aid Foundation.
Mr. Santosh Abraham, AVP, NASSCOM Foundation opened the discussion by citing the statistics that more than 8000+ crores are coming
into the CSR domain, with almost 70% of the companies are already spending 2% of their profits in CSR.
Ms. Manju Dhasmana, CSR Head, Microsoft pointed out that the most common challenge that is faced at Microsoft is how to look at
sustainable impact at scale. At Microsoft there are 2 principles followed when it comes to CSR technology can empower every person and
organization to do more, and secondly keeping a track and complementing of what is the government doing and the country heading to in this
direction. Mr. Anurag Pratap, CSR Head, Capgemini said that they as a company are working on 3 areas where they put in their resources
called as 3 Es Education, Employability and Environment. Capgemini is looking at NGOs that have the potential of up scaling the work that
they are doing and also look for models that have the potential of being replicated. Thirdly it also looks at NGOs that are created by people who
come from the same school of thought. Ms. Meenakshi Batra, CEO, Charities Aid Foundation stressed on her organizations two-fold focus to
promote the culture of giving, which could be money, skills, technology and secondly increasing the flow of resources that can be in multiple
terms towards the NGO sector, and with this focus it works with a number of people who want to engage with it in the social development
sector. Charities Aid Foundation has been working with 300 corporates by giving them advisory support in terms of what and how to do, who
to partner with.
The Afternoon Session - Digital India
Empowering Nation by connecting all
Dots.. was a power packed session of
technical presentations, discussions and saw
the involvement of the some of the most
sought after technocrats from the world of
ICT. Mr. Savitur Prasad, Principal Financial
Advisor, Indian Army, was a Special Guest
who attended the session along with the
presence of other high-profile guests from the
ICT industry that included Mr. Sanjay Jaju,
IAS, Director (Admn & Finance), National
Highways & Infrastructure Development
Corporation Ltd; Mr. Anurag Kuthiala,
Sr Director, Pre-Sales India, SAARC
& Europe, Sanovi; Mr. Vitaly Kamluk,
Director, Global Research & Analysis
Team, APAC, Kaspersky Lab; Mr. Shrikant
Sinha, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation;
Mr B. M. Baveja, Sr Director, DeitY; Mr.
Rajan S. Mathews, DG, COAI; Mr. R K
Bahuguna, CMD- RAILTEL Corporation
Of India Ltd.; Mr. Sanjay Mann, Exec. Sr.
Vice President- Reliance ADA; Mr. R. K.
Bhatnagar, Director General, TEPC; Mr.

Talking about Digital India, it is a

confluence of factors that determine how you
create a digital ecosystem for the nation. I have
propounded a framework which leads us to have
an easy understanding of what it takes to create
a digital ecosystem. I call it the 6 I framework
Infrastructure, Instruments, Instrumentality
(e-governance applications can be seen as
major driver), Involvement, Institutions and
Investments. Internet penetration is deepening
in the country and more and more people are
getting access to it. For an economy which is
in a developing stage, affordability and value for
money is going to play a big role in driving the
telcos and competitiveness.
Pankaj Khurana, Partner, Government &
Public Sector, PWC; Mr. Shekhar Agrawal,
Sr. Vice President- Vodafone India Limited;
Mr. Rajat Chand, M.D.- CSDC India; Mr.
Tarun Pathak, Sr. Analyst, Counterpoint
Research; Mr. Altaf Halde, Managing
Director, Kaspersky Labs SA; Mr. Eric
Loit, Chief Systems Architect, RAN

International; Mr. Vishwanath Kulkarni,

Director South Asia, HID Global; Mr.
Amitabh Nag, Country Manager Public
Sector, HP Inc.; Mr. Rudra Murthy K.G,
CISO, Digital India programme, Ministry
of Home GOI; Mr. Rajeev Mishra, Sr.
communication expert-India and Mr. Sanjeev
Sehgal, M.D.- Samridhi Automations.

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(From L-R) : Mr. Rajeev Gupta, Chief Technologist- Airone, Mr R. K. Bhatnagar, Director General, TEPC, Mr Amitabh
Nag, Country Manager Public Sector, HP Inc., Mr. Rajat Chand, MD, CSDC India and Mr. Shrikant Sinha, CEO,
NASSCOM Foundation

Session - 3 Digital India Smart IT and Communications

The first session of the afternoon slot was moderated by Mr. Shrikant Sinha, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation. Discussing about Digital
Literacy in the country, Mr Rajat Chand, MD, CSDC India shared that he considers it to be the Spinal Cord of the body. With the world
getting diversified, Digital Literacy is something that is becoming very instrumental for getting things done really fast. The only way to meet
the challenge is by joining the dots and get it going. Adding the seventh I Incentivization to what Mr Sanjay Jaju has earlier mentioned, Mr.
Rajeev Gupta, Chief Technologist- Airone said that CIOs indeed need to be the bridge between the Corporate and the Government because
they know the practical aspect of IT. But there should be a different way of incentivization planned by the Government, which will ensure to
speed up things and make it smoother. Pointing out at the National Telecom Policy, Mr R. K. Bhatnagar, Director General, TEPC said that it
can be considered as the Bible of the Telecom sector and while getting formulated in 2012 the policy had set a target till year 2020 of which we
are already in the halfway stage. Very ambitious broadband targets have been assigned and if the same are achieved there is a huge change for
GDP to rise to 5%. Discussing the impediments to digitization, Mr Amitabh Nag, Country Manager Public Sector, HP Inc said that no one
was taught how to use a mobile phone and there have been innovative cases of missed call that India innovated. One of the best way to improve
digital literacy is to make technology available.

(From L-R ) Mr R. K. Bhatnagar, Director General, TEPC, Mr. Shekhar Agrawal, Sr. Vice President- Vodafone India
Limited, HP Inc., Mr. Sanjay Mann, Exec. Sr. Vice President- Reliance ADA and Mr Rajan S. Mathews, DG, COAI

Session - 4 Technology is the backbone of ICT: Telcos to shape ICT

Mr Rajan S. Mathews, DG, COAI, took the floor as the moderator and called in speakers to join the discussion. Through this discussion,
the audience got an idea of where does the key opportunities lie in the telecom sector, how can Digital Divide be bridged and how users can get
access to the Internet anytime, anywhere and everywhere. Speaking on the Ambani Brothers joining hands, Mr. Sanjay Mann, Exec. Sr. Vice
President- Reliance ADA confirmed that both RCom and RIL are indeed sharing networks and towers but the biggest impact going to happen
when they combined together are able to cover 90% of the landmass of the country. Mr. Shekhar Agrawal, Sr. Vice President- Vodafone India
Limited addressed the issue of availability which is a big challenge for a country like India; but nonetheless Vodafone has been partnering itself
with the Government in its various initiatives of delivering citizen-based services. Giving his views on the call drop problem in India, Mr. R. K
Bhatnagar, Director General TEPC pointed out that call drop is not confined to India alone but happening in other countries as well because of
connectivity issues, though here the frequency is on a higher side. There are solutions to it and the same are being applied to resolve this issue.

32

June 2016

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[From L-R : Mr. Sanjeev Sehgal, M.D.- Samridhi Automations, Mr. Rudra Murthy K.G, CISO, Digital India
programme, Ministry of Home GOI , Mr Vishwanath Kulkarni, Director of Sales, Physical Access Control, India
and SAARC, HID Global , Mr. Rajeev Mishra, Sr. communication expert-India and Mr. Chetan Hingu, Country
Manager, Workstations - DSO and Attach- HP Inc. ]

Session - 5 Securing India & make in India: Building

Solutions for IoT, Smart Cities and Digital Economy

The Panel discussion was moderated by Mr. Chetan Hingu, Country Manager, Workstations - DSO and Attach- HP Inc. Mr Vishwanath
Kulkarni, Director of Sales, Physical Access Control, India and SAARC, HID Global said that the primary building block of a smart city is
Smart Building, as because the more the infrastructure gets smarter, the more the city gets smarter. Talking about the last mile connectivity
issue, Mr. Rajeev Mishra, Sr. communication expert-India said that the line of sight has got to do much with the break in the connectivity
link and this is one of the reasons why 4G launch is being delayed. Speaking on developing Smart Cities, Mr. Rudra Murthy K.G, CISO,
Digital India programme, Ministry of Home GOI reminded that it is indeed a critical task as it involves collection of data that depends
on the kinds of sensors and devices used, processing it and taking necessary action on it. The idea afterall is to give a trusted platform and a
solution to the user. Mr. Sanjeev Sehgal, M.D.- Samridhi Automations said that most of the departments are talking individually about their
solutions, whether it be automation, security or solar power while developing a Smart City. But the need now is to integrate these systems
on a single platform, in absence of which the purpose would not get solved.

Mr. B. M. Baveja
Sr Director, DeitY
Digital India is the key flagship program
of the govt. of India and it aims to transform
the country into a digitally empowered
society and knowledge economy. Talking
of Digital Connectivity, in the Fixed
Broadband subscription parameter, India
is still lowly ranked, which is 131 while in
mobile broadband subscription, the rank
is 155. 94% of rural internet connectivity is
through wireless. Rural Tele-density is 50%,
while rural broadband coverage is 2.7%. With
huge data requirements, operators are not
able manage the voice+data traffic. Internet
users in India have risen to about 400 million,
while the number of smartphones sold is 100
million.

Vitaly Kamluk
Director, Global Research & Analysis
Team, APAC, Kaspersky Lab
Ransomware propagates through infected
websites that are compromised, injection
of malicious content that can be placed in
legitimate websites, the most popular method
also includes e-mail propagation and social
networking. There are a few common ways
through which ransomware can be propagated
and 95% of the users fall prey to tricks used by
these cyber criminals. They will pose as law
enforcement agents most of the time, making
it feel that they are genuine. They will also
urge you to take action as fast as possible,
leading you in the process to pay a huge
ransom. There has been an incident reported
from Maharashtra in the last few days where
the Government network was attacked by
ransomware and 150 PCs were affected.

Anurag Kuthiala
Sr Director, Pre-Sales India, SAARC &
Europe, Sanovi
Sanovi has built its market presence in
Asia Pacific, Middle East and North America
and we hope to expand to other regions as
well. We do a tremendous amount of work in
incident and disaster management both from
an IT and non-IT perspective. There are a few
typical challenges when you try to react to a
disaster. There are also a lot of infrastructural
and operational issues which impact response
or recovery from any disaster, which possibly
can be power outrages, lack of skilled
manpower for Disaster Recovery, total
Business dependence on IT infrastructure,
natural calamities, to name a few. Every
IT DR application needs to be provisioned
according to DR best practices, monitored to
ensure it is meeting RPO, RTO and should be
regularly tested.

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Mr. Tarun Pathak

Sr. Analyst, Counterpoint Research
If we look at Q1 16 that has just surpassed,
there have been a couple of interesting things
that happened quarter on quarter. For the first
time we have seen Apples growth came to a
halt after 35 successive quarters. The number
of entrants was less than the number of exits
in the mobile phone industry. And the third
important trend that was seen was the decline
of the global smartphone industry by 2% since
the inception of this segment. India was the
lone bright spot in terms of the growth of the
Indian smartphone industry by 23% YoY in
Q1 2016. A lot of low-end players have been
coming to India to understand this market
and to find out the next level of growth.

Mr. Eric Loit

Chief Systems Architect
RAN International
Smart Grid is one of the integral
pieces that help a Smart City. Some people
interchange Smart Grid with Smart Meter
or an automatic meter reading. But they are
just a small part of the overall Smart Grid. If
we break down what Smart is, in context it
means some form of processing or analysis
that happens to the data that is collected in
real time and that demands some kind of
action. The three important components that
make a Smart Grid system start off with data
collection. This can be in the form of Smart
Meters and other data acquisition devices.
This data can also be collected from historical
archives.

Mr. Vishwanath Kulkarni

Director South Asia, HID Global
We are the pioneers in access control
and secured and trusted identity management
system. 5 years back we used to talk about
access control, today we talk about secured and
trusted identity because we are moving to the
digital mode. As part of IoT it is very important
to ensure that not only humans but also assets
are secured and trusted. We contribute close
to 80% of the enterprise market in terms of
solution offerings. We are into digitization
of Government ID, besides being into RFID
technology. Our offerings are not restricted
to mobile phones alone but wearables also
and it finds application in Healthcare, security
industry and many more.

The evening session was, however the

most-awaited part of the event, as it saw
the launch of the much-awaited Annual
Brand Book. Carving a niche of its own,
the Brand Book, now in its fifth year,
has attracted attention of thousands of
technology brands who have used it as a
reference book to reach the ecosystem.
Supporting the Prime Ministers vision
to make India a digitally literate country,
Mr Deepak Kumar Sahu, Publisher &
Chief Editor, Kalinga Digital Media &
VARINDIA, set the tone for the evening
with his opening address. The fast-growing
technology sector in India, from being merely
a technology adapter or importer, is now
becoming a creator of technology- enabled
disruptive solutions. Digital India is one of
the most exciting initiatives in the country
that uses technology as a great leveller for
the citizens of India. Today, government
leaders understand that while the end goal
is to offer better services, foster innovation
and generate more jobs, the critical enabler
is going to be technology and the foundation
to a digital nation will be laying a pan-India
network.
The unveiling of the Brand Book was done
in the presence of Mr Shankar Aggarwal,
Secretary, Labour and Employment,
Government of India; Shri Savitur Prasad,
Principal Integrated Financial Adviser

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June 2016

www.varindia.com

During the Lamp Lighting Session: (From L to R) - Ms S. Mohini Ratna, Editor, VARINDIA;
Mr Shankar Aggarwal, Secretary, Labour and Employment, Government of India; Mr.
Vipin Tyagi, ED, C-Dot and Mr Deepak Kumar Sahu, Publisher & Chief Editor, Kalinga
Digital Media & VARINDIA
(Army), Government of India; Mr. Vipin
Tyagi, ED, C-Dot; Mr Eric Loit, Chief
Systems Architect, RAN International; Mr.
R. K Bhatnagar, Director General TEPC;
Ms S. Mohini Ratna, Editor, VARINDIA;
Mr. Rudra Murthy K.G, CISO, Digital
India programme, Ministry of Home - GOI
and Mr Deepak Kumar Sahu, Publisher
& Chief Editor, Kalinga Digital Media &
VARINDIA.

But the launch of the Brand Book was

not the only attraction in the evening, as 14th
IT Forum also had top companies receiving
Brand of Excellence, Most Trusted Company
and Made in Brand awards. The awards were
based on the votes cast on the VARINDIA
website where respondents voted for their
favourite companies. The Lucky Draw contest
by VARINDIA generated great interest from
the audience, with six lucky winners walking
away with iPads and iPhones.

Mr. Savitur Prasad

Principal Financial
Army

Advisor,

Indian

India is showing great progress today

in the digitization area and there are early
signs of the nation picking up fast some of
the digital trends seen globally. But I will still
harp on the simple fact that unless Electronic
manufacturing is promoted in the country,
this new found success would be of no use to
us and I would term it simply as a lop-sided
situation. While on one hand we have made
huge developments on electronics front,
import of electronic hardware goods has
not yet reduced. Nevertheless there is a big
opportunity for the manufacturing sector to
come up in the country and the ongoing Make
In India mission is a big testimony to it.

Mr Shankar Aggarwal
Secretary, Labour and Employment,
Government of India
In 1947 when we gained independence,
the biggest challenge then was the form of
governance that needs to be adopted. People
seemed very apprehensive when we finally
adopted Democracy, with the view that this
institution may not succeed in the country.
Democracy flourishes only in those countries
that are relatively prosperous. But today we are
not only the largest democracy in the world but
also the most thriving and vibrant. There were
also challenges of security, scarcity of foodgrains
and economic growth before us but very soon
we pulled up our socks to address them as well.
But in spite of so much developments seen,
1/3rd of the Indian population still lives under
the poverty line, which means that growth has
not been inclusive and development has not
reached every corners.

Mr. Vipin Tyagi

ED - C-Dot
C-Dot has got the National IPR Award
this year, which means that patents have been
filed in India by youngsters. The youngsters
of this country are a brilliant set of people and
if they can be groomed well, they can work
wonders. There have been numerous IPRs filed
and ideas, innovations and products created at
C-DOT, but this is just the tip of the iceberg.
We are moving into a totally new era of Make
In India. We also wanted to do something in
IoT and M2M, and so I had to write the first
architecture of the M2M communication,
complying with the oneM2M standards. As a
matter of fact, India has built the worlds first
oneM2M compliant platform which we have
built it and launched it.

Mr. Amit Singh

PwC, Director, Advisory
Smart cities can be seen as small initiatives or innovations taken by various cities. But at
the end of the day, it should be kept in isolation. It should be viewed as a catalyst which would
actually put the juggernaut rolling in terms of the eventual Smart City conceptualization across
all the cities in the country. Smart City mission not only has a big opportunity for ICT service
providers but also other players. There are 4-5 key parameters which need to be addressed to
leverage the opportunity while formulating the IT strategy the product has to innovative,
they should be simple and adaptable before offered to the citizen, should comply to open
standards and should be secured.

Unveiling of the 5th Edition of the Brand Book 2016

Pic L to R: [From L-R : Mr. Vipin Tyagi, ED, C-Dot, Mr. Shankar Aggarwal, Secretary, Labour and Employment, Government
of India, Mr. Rudra Murthy K.G, CISO, Digital India programme, Ministry of Home GOI, Mr. Deepak Kumar Sahu, Publisher &
Chief Editor, Kalinga Digital Media & VARINDIA, Mr. R. K Bhatnagar, Director General TEPC, Shri Savitur Prasad, Principal
Integrated Financial Adviser (Army), Government of India, Mr. Eric Loit, Chief Systemswww.varindia.com
Architect, RAN International
June 2016 and
35
Ms. S. Mohini Ratna, Editor, VARINDIA]

EVENT

Award Winners at the Event

MOST TRUSTED COMPANY

BRAND OF EXCELLENCE

EMC - Intelligent Storage

HP Inc. - Printer

VMware - Virtualization

SAP - Cloud Solution

Cisco - Networking Solution

Canon - Digitization

Dell - Technology Solutions

WD - Hard Disk

Quick Heal - Anti Virus

36

MAKE IN INDIA BRAND

June 2016

www.varindia.com

C-DOT - Telecommunication

Tally - ERP Company

INDUSTRY WATCH

Why Microsoft Acquires LinkedIn for

a huge amount of $26.2 bn?
............ And the Answer is Expansion of Market Opportunities
Microsoft shakes hand
with LinkedIn Corp (world's
largest online network for
professionals) for a $26.2
billion acquisition deal to
reach out to professionals on
social network. Despite both
the companies struggling,
the deal is expected to
have a newer horizon for
Microsofts Office suite as
well as for LinkedIn.
Satya Nadella is optimistic
about this deal as this is
the biggest acquisition by
Microsoft ever and is nearly
three times as large as the deal
to acquire Skype five years
ago. The acquisition will help Microsoft
mark its presence in social media, which is
dominated by Facebook and Google.
This is the biggest acquisition in the
world of Internet Company, not to forget
the acquisition of WhatsApp in 2014 by
Facebook for about $22 billion. Microsoft is
working very hard to become an enterprise
solutions
company.
The
acquisition will help Microsoft
extend its CRM environment
and move towards the enterprise
solutions fulfilment in terms of
getting leads from LinkedIn
and to address todays work
split, such as Microsofts Office programs,
and professional networks that connect
workers, Satya Nadella said in a statement.
Nadella further hinted at aims to weave
these two pieces together. Going forward,
LinkedIn will retain its flagship brand,
culture and independence. Jeff Weiner
will remain CEO of LinkedIn, reporting
to Nadella. The acquisition will help to
enhance our strong focus Microsofts cloud
business portfolio and will be a strong
entry into the world of enterprise social
networking and also accelerate the growth
of LinkedIn, as well as Microsoft Office
365 and Dynamics services (CRM) Software
package. Likewise LinkedIns analytics
will help power data tools for Microsofts
Dynamics, which competes with Salesforce
in helping companies manage relationships
with their customers. Microsofts Cortana
digital assistant could provide users with
information pulled from LinkedIn about
participants in upcoming meetings.
Supporting this transaction, Co-founder
and chairman, LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman
said, Today is a re-founding moment for
LinkedIn, Hoffman said. In a statement
made by CEO Weiner, he said that
combination of Microsofts cloud business

and LinkedIns network gives us a chance

to also change the way the world works.
Currently, LinkedIn has more than 9,700
full-time employees and is headquartered in
Mountain View, California and has offices in
30 cities across the world.

Questions with the Current

members in LinkedIn

Nadella focuses on appealing to business

customers with cloud-based services and

productivity tools rather than regular
customers. Going by the numbers, Microsoft
has over 1.2 billion users of Office, over
300 million active devices are running on
Windows 10, there are around 70 million
monthly active users of Office 365 and eight
million paid Dynamics seats.
In comparison, LinkedIn taps into a pool
of 433 million members, of which 105 million
are active monthly and two million are paid
subscribers, accessing over seven million
active job listings, nine million company
pages and over 50,000 university pages.
For Nadella, by connecting the
professional Cloud and network of both
Microsoft and LinkedIn, the combined entity
has the potential to accelerate the realisation
of the global economy.
Microsoft has made several big
acquisitions over recent years under previous
CEO Steve Ballmer, though many of them
have not panned out as hoped. The other
some of the biggest acquisitions by Microsoft
in past are that of SKYPE for $8.5 Billion,
Nokia Mobile Phone Unit for $7.2 Billion,
AQUANTIVE for $ 6 Billion, MOJANG
for $2.5 Billion and YAMMER for $1.2
Billion. Microsoft has largely written off its

$9.5 Billion purchase of Nokia Corps

mobile phone business, Skype hasnt
matched the promise of integrating
into other products after the $8.5
billion deal in 2011, and Yammer has
been a mixed bag after the corporate
social-network operator was bought
in 2012. Nadellas 2014 purchase
of Mojang AB, the maker of the
Minecraft video game, however
has been a bright spot in terms of
expanding business opportunity.
Speaking about the financial
health, LinkedIn has about 433
million registered users and has
annual revenue of almost $3 billion.
Its trailing 12-month earnings before
interest, tax, depreciation and
amortization (EBITDA) was $842 million
as of 31 March 2016. It shows the deal price
is about 31 times the trailing 12-month
EBITDA of LinkedIn. The deal price would
be 26-27 times LinkedIns EBITDA guidance
for FY16. Microsoft said it will raise fresh
debt to pay for the deal. The transaction has
been approved by both boards and is likely
to close within this year.
The offer of $196 per share
represents a premium of 49.5 per cent
to LinkedIn's Friday closing price.
LinkedIn's shares jumped 48 per cent
to $194.28 before the opening bell on
Monday. Microsoft's shares were down
3.3 per cent. Microsoft said it would issue
new debt to fund the deal. After the deal,
LinkedIn will become part of Microsoft's
productivity and business processes unit.
LinkedIn has long been valued for
having the potential viral growth of a
social professional network group with
the recurring revenues of a software-as-aservice business. But recently, growth has
started to slow down and its been more
difficult to get people to return to the site
and pay for services. The company has been
rethinking its strategy, redesigning its suite
of mobile applications to make the product
more user-friendly. By associating with
Microsoft it would give LinkedIn a boost
in newer business opportunity, enterprise
cloud friendly and making it more useful if
people are sharing updates more frequently.
With this, there are newer deals that can be
expected from four biggies in the world,
which are Facebook, Google, Microsoft and
Amazon that will bring a newer dimension
to the cloud and social media era.
But going forward, a question that will
arise with the think tank is if whether the
next time one logs in to LinkedIn, one
would be asked to upgrade to Windows 10
first? This remains to be seen. n

www.varindia.com

June 2016

37

COVER STORY

The Birth of New-Age Datacenters

The data center growth story is further getting accentuated with the need to transform data
center infrastructure and build it from a long-term standpoint. With the help of a bimodal
IT strategy, new architectures such as software-defined data center, flash storage will
transform infrastructure planning and deployment for increased agility of a data center
The technology landscape globally is
changing rapidly, with Cloud Computing
taking the centre stage. Growth of Cloud
services adoption represents a transformative
technology for data centers, offering a route
to access data on any type of internetconnected device.
The Cloud services market continues
to grow rapidly in India too, with Cloud
spending anticipated to reach almost $2
billion by the end of the decade. The market,
though evolving, is still at a very nascent
stage in India as opposed to globally. One
of the main concerns why enterprises are a
little skeptical with Cloud adoption in India
is the point of security. Customers and
enterprises are still not comfortable while
sharing business critical data on Cloud for
lack of security policies and technologies

Debmalya Dey Roy

Vice-President Sales & Marketing
Pi Datacenters

38

June 2016

www.varindia.com

which can safeguard their data. Currently,

we are witnessing Cloud adoption mainly
for non-business/critical applications,
shares Shrirang Deshpande, Country Head
Data Center Business, Emerson Network
Power, India.
Nevertheless,
there
are
great
opportunities for growth of Cloud in India,
especially as the government continues to
invest in improved infrastructure and as
internet access expands to more consumers
through smartphone. Cloud computing is
one of the key technologies in Governments
Digital India initiative as it desires to
provide citizen-centric services based on
Aadhaar authentication to every Indian.
Intel has been contributing to achieving
this larger vision by improving efficiency
within Cloud environments that are being

Rajesh Dhar
Senior Director, Technology Services,
Hewlett Packard Enterprise India

actively deployed by the Government. We

are working with the leading enterprises,
cloud service providers, and a broad range of
solutions partners to identify requirements
and enable solutions to address challenges in
cloud adoption, says Srinivas Tadigadapa,
Director, Intel South Asia.
Cloud technology has matured to a
point today where it is a strategic choice for
customers to compete in their respective
industry for higher market share, versus
in time gone by when it used to be just an
option to choose. The Cloud technology
solutions today with high inbuilt security
are fast becoming the choice of customers
for parking their data. Enterprises are
turning to cloud to improve business agility,
reduce expenses and accelerate business
innovation. Furthermore, Mobile, Internet

Sunder Krishnan
Advisor, ISACA

COVER STORY

George Chacko
Principal Systems Engineer & Lead Technical
Consultant, Brocade India
of Things (IoT) and Big Data which are
expected to grow exponentially in the next
20 years, will drive Cloud usage to a large
extent, says Rajesh Dhar, Senior Director,
Technology Services, Hewlett Packard
Enterprise India.
The IT industry is observing a paradigm
shift in the technology space today. The
cloud phenomenon, which enables an
automated and optimized performance, is
majorly driving the shift. The growing cloud
market in India with an estimated CAGR of
32% over the years 2013-18 stands as a proof
for the same. Gartners Cloud Adoption
Survey in January 2015 revealed 53% of
organizations were already using Cloud
services and another 43% in the same survey
indicated planned adoption by the end of
the year. It also states that by 2018 public
Cloud spending in India will reach nearly $2
billion, from $638 million in 2014, explains
Debmalya Dey Roy, Vice-President Sales
& Marketing, Pi Datacenters.
Ashok Shenoy, Director, Datacenter
Sales, Cisco India & SAARC, observes,
Indian enterprises are now harnessing the
Cloud for better agility and integration
with global supply chains and markets.
The Cisco Global Cloud Index projects
that 83% of the global data- center traffic
would move through Cloud services with
yearly traffic amounting to 10.4 zettabytes
by 2019. Industry trends point to increased
infrastructure spends that would have an
impact on new technologies, products,
operations, organizational cultures and
markets. The arrival of mobility and big
data has further increased Indias appetite
for Cloud. With digitization of businesses
and processes, we expect Cloud adoption in
India would continue to grow. Businesses
are also looking for smart data centers that
deliver virtualization, storage, automation,
visibility and lower energy footprints to
ensure flexibility and cost- effectiveness.

Data Center Planning &

Modernization

CIOs and organizations today are

constantly looking at building data centers
from a long- term standpoint. This can
sometimes become challenging for a

Jim Simon
Senior Director Marketing, Asia-Pacific,
Quantum

Indian enterprises are

now harnessing the Cloud
for better agility and
integration with global
supply chains and markets.
The Cisco Global Cloud
Index projects that 83%
of the global data- center
traffic would move through
Cloud services with yearly
traffic amounting to 10.4
zettabytes by 2019. Industry
trends point to increased
infrastructure spends that
would have an impact on
new technologies, products,
operations, organizational
cultures and markets. The
arrival of mobility and big
data has further increased
Indias appetite for Cloud.
With digitization of
businesses and processes,
we expect Cloud adoption
in India would continue
to grow. Businesses are
also looking for smart
data centers that deliver
virtualization, storage,
automation, visibility and
lower energy footprints
to ensure flexibility and
cost- effectiveness.

Rakesh Kumar Singh

Tech Lead, Datacenter Technologies,
Juniper Networks India & SAARC
CIO, considering business pressures and
technology viabilities can end up exerting
pressure on the IT Infrastructure of an
organization. A majority of organizations
today are looking at scalable and modular
data center solutions. Scalable and
modular data centers are an option a lot
of organizations today looking at as they
can be built and customized according to
requirements, says Shrirang.
Srinivas, on his part, suggests a few points
that should be assessed while planning for a
basic data center blueprint
Power planning: Efficient optimization
of power usage is of vital importance
while planning for a data center. While
monitoring the consumption of power by
a data center, one also needs to consider the
cooling infrastructure in which the system
operates.
Adaptability: Data centers should be
adaptable to absorb technological changes
and act as enablers in providing faster
processing result.
Space optimization: Opting for a
modular design facilitates simplicity and
flexibility, allowing enterprise IT architects
to add or remove building blocks, as needed.
Enterprises are also opting for converged
data center infrastructure where one can
have computing and storage functions in
one appliance, thus improving scalability
without
additional
expenditure
on
hardware, etc.
Security: With cyber-attacks and threats
becoming a hot topic in the connected
devices space, data centers need to focus on
security.
Going hybrid: A mix of both public and
private Cloud can be adopted, the former
providing resource sharing over multiple
users and the latter allow more control over
of security, performance and service-level
agreements offer best of both worlds.
George states that organizations should
embrace software-defined data centers
(SDDCs) which are the next step in the
evolution of virtualization and Cloud
computing as it provides a solution to
support both legacy enterprise applications
and new Cloud computing services.
Software is what implements incredibly

www.varindia.com

June 2016

39

COVER STORY

Shrirang Deshpande
Country Head Data Center Business,
Emerson Network Power, India

fast, low-latency networks on top of

commodity processors. Intelligent software
is what enables storage vendors to eschew
expensive enterprise solid-state disks in
favour of inexpensive consumer-grade
drives and still achieve high reliability and
performance.
As companies scale out their operations,
it is likely that investments into data center
infrastructure will focus heavily on the clientfacing and analytical workload aspects, to
enhance the competitive advantages of their
organization. With the rapid pace of cloud
adoption forcing the implementation of new
network infrastructures, the integration
of functions such as building management
and information management systems are

Cloud Opportunities in India

With demand coming from various sectors and the big players globalizing their
operation, the future of the data center market in India seems to be on the rise.
Indian enterprises will be focussing on building intelligent data centers that will be
optimizing existing hardware assets by using additional software capabilities. The
current adoption will lead to increased attention to newer trends such as public cloud,
and integrated systems. With increasing numbers of users coming online and the
governments Make in India initiative, we believe that offering data center operators
the agility to respond to change with innovative solutions and cost, as well as energyefficient DC infrastructure will drive the growth engine for most players in this segment
in 2016, points out Abhijit Potnis, Director Technology Solution, India and SAARC,
EMC.

The Indian data center market is buoyed by positive sentiments in the economy and
the strong resurgence of growth-related projects across verticals such as banking,
insurance, retail, manufacturing, telecom and government projects such as Digital India,
Make in India and Smart Cities. Even emerging verticals like education, hospitality,
healthcare and communications and media need customized data center solutions.
Market opportunity for data centers in India continues to mature with the growing
prevalence of 4G, broadband connectivity and emergence of disruptive technologies
like cloud and virtualization, says George Chacko, Principal Systems Engineer & Lead
Technical Consultant, Brocade India.

Some of the opportunities as Srinivas points

it out for data center in India are
Digital Infrastructure Build Out: The ongoing rollout of 4G and broadband build out
will be a huge contributor to Cloud services. With over 300 million internet users
and India becoming the second-largest country by internet users, India will see
tremendous growth in Cloud services propelled by the connectivity of people and
things and with growing need for data to reside inside the country and security.
Cloud is integral to the massive digital infrastructure build out in India with online
citizen services delivery for a 1.2B + billion citizens, Aadhaar-based services, GSTN,
Smart Cities, national supercomputing mission, security and surveillance.

Abhijit Potnis
Director Technology Solution, India and
SAARC, EMC
increasingly the key in the realignment
of existing operational models within
organizations. The smarter data centers
will now incorporate servers, storage,
racks, power systems and other networking
equipment all within a converged network
framework

with
software-defined
infrastructure in particular allowing agile
mitigation of challenges and orchestration
of resources, contends Rakesh Kumar
Singh, Tech Lead, Datacenter Technologies,
Juniper Networks India & SAARC.
Data center modernization entails many
aspects ranging from security to performance,
to lowering power consumption. By
moving unstructured data off of primary
storage, performance is increased and power
consumption is decreased, especially when
the unstructured data is stored in an active
tape archive. To ITs customers, the data
is exactly where they expect it to be. But
behind the scenes the data resides on a
low-cost archive whether it is active tape,
object storage, or even the Cloud, says Jim
Simon, Senior Director Marketing, AsiaPacific, Quantum.
With data growth showing no signs of
slowing down, IT managers are realizing that
too much of their budget is going toward
primary storage and backup software.
A New Archive Workflow can save IT
managers substantial costs while allowing
them to save even more, Jim further says.
We know that the data center industry
is very dynamic in nature and so is its
growth pattern. Any modernization in

Rising emphasis on High-Performance Computing: The combination of highperformance computing tools, rapidly-falling costs of storing data and the wealth
of data generated empowers a transformation of business operations. India now
has 11 supercomputers on the Top 500 list which stands a testimony to the rapid
growth in data centers here, and the opportunity the HPC segments hold for future
research in the geography.
Emergence of Small- and Medium-Scale Businesses: SMEs are poised for healthy
growth of Indian data center market as it provides them the flexibility for deploying
software- driven networks and scalability along with automated networks. Migration
to the cloud, taking advantage of its operational and cost-efficiencies and improving
data security are empowering opportunities available to SMEs.
Growth of E-Commerce: With the proliferation of e-commerce and India being the
nerve centre for major IT activities, the demand for high storage will continue,
resulting in phenomenal growth of data centers in the country.

40

June 2016

www.varindia.com

Ashok Shenoy
Director, Datacenter Sales
Cisco India & SAARC

COVER STORY
this space invariably brings paradigm
structural and component level shift.
This holds good for both captive and
service provider data centers. The DC
modernization would typically touch upon
aspects like consolidation, virtualization,
cloud computing, outsourcing/offshoring.
This would have significant impact on the
size, types and location of data centers. As a
result, we are seeing software-defined cloud
data centers are taking the centre stage,
elbowing out the traditional brick-andmortar facilities. The result is that there is
an impact on the overall energy demand of
data centers, asserts Debmalya.
Furthermore, Rajesh Dhar points out that
compression technology and virtualization
is enabling companies to do more with
their technology assets. This means that the
companies are able to deploy and use heavy
applications, thereby increasing data center
demand. Services like virtualization, Cloud
computing, disaster recovery and even data
center extensions are evolving and moving
more organizations to data center model.
However, the modernization of data
centers could also pose big threats, the
primary being Cloud Security Threats and
Virtualization Security Threats. These
issues and threats could be mitigated by
performing a Detailed Risk Assessment,

The Data Center market going

ahead

Srinivas Tadigadapa
Director,
Intel South Asia
identifying gaps in design, in processes and
skill-level gaps, reviewing the Architecture,
suggesting a working (interim) and target
architecture, drawing a road map plan
and monitoring incidents closely during
the journey, cautions Sunder Krishnan,
Advisor, ISACA.
He further says that fixing security
breaches and design gaps later becomes a
costly exercise. Therefore, data security
needs to be planned well in advance, when
organizations are looking at reducing their
IT operational costs considerably.

In the coming years, Indian enterprises

will be focussing on building intelligent data
centers that focus on optimizing existing
hardware assets by adding additional software
capabilities. Several factors such as physical
location, types of applications supported,
power and cooling, downtime, floor area
will help determine an organizations tech
investment plan. The other aspect of the
data center market that will see change
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) space, where
both infrastructure and business models are
flexible and are based on usage. This shift will
reduce operating cost and increase utilization
of data center capacity.
An estimated $1.6 billion worth of
investment is on the cards from multiple
players, for upcoming data center capacity
during the period 2015-18. Also as trends show,
the demand for third-party DCs has taken a
steep rise over the years from a meagre 1520%
in 2012 to 35-40% in 2015 and is expected to
grow 25% CAGR YoY pertaining to the high
opportunity cost of reliable power supply and
real estate, they provide. Virtualization being
another key feature of todays DCs, the slash
in operational costs it brings in, attracts more
enterprises towards it.

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www.varindia.com

June 2016

41

FACE TO FACE

Huawei focuses on the work before

sudden breakthroughs
BEHIND THE SCENES: Huaweis
Chenlifang explains what a fishman casting
a net, a high-energy particle collider and the
worlds fastest woman have in common, and
what the brand is trying to communicate in
its recent campaign.
A Congolese fisherman;a particle supercollider; the worlds fastest woman. Whats
the connection between the images in
Huaweis latest brand campaign?
Appearing in airports and online, the
adsconsist of three panels, each capturing
a breakthrough moment when focus,
perseverance,
and
preparation
yield
extraordinary results.
What you dont see in these images are
the steps leading up to each breakthrough.
Yet it is those steps that hold the key to
understanding both the campaign and Huawei
itself, the culture and the values that have led
the company to where it is now.
When it comes to ICT (information
communications technology), one can point
to many factors that drive success: smarter
people, more R&D, heavier ad spending,
first-mover advantage, superior customer
service. But whatever its ingredients, success
is nearly always depicted in its most dramatic
form: the champion hoisting the trophy,
theentrepreneur clinching the big contract, the
Eureka moment where a light bulbswitches
on to illuminate the darkness.
By their very nature, breakthroughs seem
to come from nowhere. But what lies behind
these moments of sudden brilliance?
The answer, usually, is years of painstaking

effort. People who work in R&D know that

innovation is an output: an end result that
everyone can see. What remains hidden to
most people are the inputs: focus, patient
investment of time and money, and dedication
to a long-term goal.
Those are the themes of the Huawei brand
campaign. We felt it was important to show
them because, as we go from being a B2B
seller of Internet switching equipment to a

42

June 2016

www.varindia.com

global brand, we no longer have the luxury

of merely selling gear. Instead, we must help
people understand who Huawei is, and what
it stands for.
The Huawei Breakthrough campaign is
a first step in that direction. Each of its three
images shows a separate phase of success. The
first captures the moment when a
Congolese fisherman lunges forward
with his massive net to snare a fish
in the raging waters of the Lualaba
River. He choosesthe right spot, stays
focused amid the turbulent water,
and at the vital moment catches his
prey, all the while maintaining his
footing to avoid being swept awayby
the current.
The second visual shows the
worlds biggest particle collider.
Scientists at CERN spent several
decades and more than US $9b
to build a machine sophisticated
enough to detect the Higgs Boson,
a sub-atomic particle so critical to
our understanding of the universe that its
popularly known as the God Particle. The
quest began in the 1960s. CERN did not
announce its discovery of the God Particle
until 2012, when decades of patient investment
produced one of the greatest breakthroughs
of modern physics.
The third image shows Florence GriffithJoyner, the world record holder for the
womans 100-meter dash, crossing the finish

line, her arms raised in triumph. While the

picture captures a moment of victory, what
remains invisible are the years of dedication
that led up to it.
Unlike our past ads, oralmost any
advertising by a Chinese company, the
campaign
reflects
Huaweis
28-year
history:our lean years and false starts as well as
our technical achievements and growth. The
ads are based on a Chinese aphorism, which
means to rise suddenly through accumulated
effort. Those characters tell a simple but
powerful story about picking your goals,
sticking with them over time, and eventually
reaping the rewards.
The explosive growth of Huaweis
mobile phone business is a perfect example
of focus, perseverance, and seemingly sudden
breakthrough. Investments in ICT can stretch
out over long periods. For example, a decade
can separate the successive generations of
mobile phone technology (2G, 3G, 4G).
This time lag requires companies to adopt a
long-term vision and avoid being distracted
by peripheral opportunities. If focus lays the
foundation of breakthroughs, perseverance
serves as its catalyst. The time needed to reach
those breakthroughs whether months, year,
or decades makes the eventual moment of
victory all the sweeter.
Chen Lifang is a corporate senior vice
president at Huawei Technologies and a
director of the companys board. She oversees
Huaweis global public affairs functions.

ISODA CORNER

Best practices for digital marketing

Rajesh Singh, AVP, Channel and Alliances, Web Werks India

shares the best practices his company employs for digital
marketing
We have found tremendous success with
our digital marketing initiatives started
a year back. Being a managed services
and cloud services provider, we
have a robust infrastructure with 3
datacenters in Mumbai and Pune and
2 datacenters in US. Our marketing
objective is to generate awareness
about our services, lead generation for
new customer acquisition, and upsell
and cross-sell among existing customers.
For this, we have formed a team of
three
content marketing professionals. We have a large annual marketing
budget, of which 70 percent goes into events and exhibitions, and the
rest is for digital marketing. Our digital marketing strategy consists
of Google AdWords, Social Media, EDMs, blogging and content
seeding with spending of Rs 6-8 lakhs per month.
We have received tremendous traction from Google AdWords
with large number of qualified leads. We are also doing SEO with
around 45 relevant keywords, which have enabled us improve our
ranking. Our ranking on Google has also improved with our push
on blogging.
This year, we have plans to expand customer base to Pune and
Delhi, where we will actively target channel partners as well through
our digital marketing initiatives.

Opportunities in Smart City and

Digital India programs

Pranav Pandya, Co-Founder and Chairman, Dev IT, shares

his views on how his company is tapping ICT opportunities from
flagship government projects
Smart City initiative of the central
government has opened opportunities
in advanced network monitoring
and management technologies. This
is one of our key domain expertizes
with an in-house NOC and multitechnology proficient team working
24x7.
We
have
more
than
two
decades of experience in development
o f
portals, enterprise applications, digital identity
solutions
and collaboration platforms. Further, we see opportunities for BI
and analytics with heaps of data that would be generated in smart
cities.
Apart from this, we have an early-mover advantage as we forayed
into e-Governance projects in 1999. This has enabled us to attain a
main league IT player status in Gujarat. In addition, we have merged
software development unit of a well-known overseas ITeS provider,
last fiscal. The merger has enabled us to cater to opportunities in
SMAC and IoT incubation centers.
In fact, we were part of a large project under Smart City initiative
to create GIS-based facility for citizens by which they can know
land status under town planning activities. Under the Digital India
initiative, for ease of doing business we provided web portal solution
to streamline MSME applications and approvals tracking processes.

CASE STUDY
DigitalTrack Provides Total Storage Solution

Total Environment is an architect-led real estate design, development and construction firm. The company has developed several
prestigious projectsthat range from residential apartments to educational campusesacross Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai, Ooty
and Mysore. The company had a huge storage requirementreal-time storage for operational and project management data, and archival
for 2D and 3D designs of its real estate projects.
Challenges
The companys existing primary storage was old, non-scalable and well-past support period. The companys data backup on tapes was
not reliable and lacked DR. Human intervention was required in managing data backup and recovery. In a nut-shell, the company required
a scalable, flexible and futuristic storage solution.
The solution
Chennai-based DigitalTrack was selected as a partner for providing the storage solution due to the partners unique consultative
approach. DigitalTrack analyzed the customers current challenges and future needs to suggest a solution which included Dell Storage
NX3230, a capacity-dense, dedicated network-attached storage (NAS) solution integrated with advanced file-sharing software designed
especially for small- to medium-sized organizations.
Benefits
The solution has automated the backup thus reducing the effort in backup procedure. It also provided significant savings on backup
software and hardware. Overall access to large size files (>200MB) has decreased significantly. Reliability of the backup has increased as
recovery is almost guaranteed and time to recover lost files has reduced drastically. Efficiency of the storage system has increased due to
thin provisioning. Overall time to recover files has reduced drastically. The out-of-the-box de-duplication feature has improved storage
utilization and performance.

Enjay becomes preferred partner of SugarCRM

Enjay IT Solutions has officially become the preferred India partner for open source CRM vendor, SugarCRM.
The partnership will enable Enjay to pitch SugarCRM to large enterprises.
We have been a prolific ISV and solutions provider for SugarCRM and have developed several unique
plug-ins. Our contribution to SugarCRM has been recognized with this formal partnership, said Limesh
Parekh, CEO, Enjay IT Solutions.
Enjays CRM customers span the healthcare, IT &ITeS, manufacturing, telecom, real estate, and
professional services segments. Some of them include Wysetek, Insight Business Machines, Mahima Group,
Jariwala Labs, Global Hospitals, Phoenix Medical, Omnex International and Navaida Solutions.
Mitul Shah, Director, Rajesh Paper Mills also vouched for Enjay. They understood the CRM process
required for a growing organization like us and provided us a customized solution which has grown our revenues
by 30 percent, he said.

www.varindia.com

June 2016

43

FACE TO FACE

Veeam helps customers to

achieve Always-on Business
In a chat with VARINDIA, Omar Akhtar, Regional Manager, Channels, Middle East & SAARC, Veeam
Software, has discussed about different opportunities in India, target verticals and USPs of the solutions

Please brief about Veeam.

Founded in 2006, Veeam Software has developed its core product
V Power, which enables us to boot and run a virtual machine
directly for backup plans. It gives the end-users a restore time of 15
minutes. The customers have been virtualizing many applications
aggressively, but they can do it in 2530 minutes. When these virtual
backups fail, the customers have the legacy backup system. These
backup solutions have been written in the physical word and these
backups are trying to retrofit the products to address virtualization.
They have to wait for hours to restore these virtual services, which
is a big challenge.
For Veeam, India is a very strategic country. It is a very big
investment region for us. We are looking to lead the availability
space within the Indian market.

How do you see the Indian market?

The opportunities from the partners point of view are of multimillion dollars and VMware being active in this market it is a very
big opportunity for us. Veeam is very well positioned to capitalize
on that opportunity. We try to be very competitive about the total
cost of ownership and return on investment.
In a short period of time, we have been very disruptive about
technology, changing customers way from legacy backup to
availability for their modern data center. Jet Airways, Indigo Airlines,
Himalaya, Hero Honda, PwC, etc are some of our prestigious
customers.

Which are your target verticals in India?

Veeam mainly focusses on virtualization. Any customer using
VMware or Hyper V is a prime candidate for Veeam. We do not just
deal with one particular vertical. Virtualization touches all verticals
like BFSI, IT/ITeS, manufacturing, education, oil & gas, etc. So, these
verticals are prime candidates for adopting Veeam for availability of
modern data center.
We help customers adopt virtualization in server level and have
extended it to the desktop level. We also have free product backup for
endpoint. With this free product, one can take backup of desktops and
laptops as well. We are moving forward from servers to the desktops
and extending it further to the Cloud. We can offer existing Veeam
customers services such as backup-as-a-service, disaster recovery-asa-service.

How do you see data center business as an

opportunity?
In terms of the journey to the cloud, whether you are adopting
private cloud or you want to take services in cloud hosted in Azure
or Amazon, it is a big opportunity for Veeam. Veeams technology
which we have has been built for specific virtualization within the
data center and represents big opportunity for us. The big storage
vendors like HP, NetApp and EMC are in customers data center
today for production storage. Veeam integrates directly with these
major storage players within the customers data center.

What is the dependency level with Cloud

backup?
There are two ways to help the customers to get backup-as-aservice. Many customers in India are working with Microsoft Azure.
Leveraging Veeam, we can back up the virtual machine and can send
the copy directly into the Microsoft Azure cloud. With our new

44

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feature, in the event of a failure one can restore the virtual machine
directly from the Azure Cloud. This is one way to help the customers
with Cloud adoption.
The other way is working with network partners. With the
Cloud Connect feature, we can select our local partner in any metro
and can send the copy of backup to the partner. The service provider
then can host a copy of that backup.

Who is your major distributor in India?

Veeam as an organization is 100% channel-focussed and our success
in any country is due to our partners. We truly rely on our partners
and we want them to be true extension to the Veeam community.
We are working with Ingram Micro and Redington. They give us
good coverage across many partners in the Indian market.
In India we have around 200 channel partners which include
traditional value-added resellers, solution providers and system
integrators.

What are the USPs of Veeam?

The unique selling point of Veeam is recoverability. There is no
point in taking a backup if you cannot guarantee that you can restore
from it. So with Veeam we have a patented technological backup
which enables us to copy the backup from any virtual machine
and we boot the copy in an isolated land. Then what we do is a
verification process. We make sure that the operating system is not
corrupted, there is no corruption in the application whether the
data to the application is consistent, the virtual machine is healthy.
We then send an email report to the customer. That is a big unique
selling point here in the Indian market.
Secondly, it is the recovery time, how quickly we can restore the
data in the event of failure. In India, we are working in the area of
always-on business. So if they rely on legacy backup tools and use
these tools to restore virtual services which, if unsuccessful, is not
going to help them to achieve the aim of always-on business. With
Veeam, we first market the technology called Instant VM Recovery.
So if there are any failures, then Veeam can restore any virtual
machine in 15 minutes. We can help customers in India to achieve
always-on business. n

INDUSTRY EVENT

Bentley Systems CONNECTION Events

Draw around 400+ Attendees
Bentley Systems, Incorporated held
its CONNECTION Events in Delhi &
Hyderabad on 3rd & 5th May respectively and
drew over 400 infrastructure professionals
from the regions. Attendees learned about
the CONNECT Edition, Bentleys common
environment to comprehensively support
the delivery of infrastructure projects. The

common environment unifies work across

the entire project ecosystem and over the
full lifecycle of the project. The result is
improved performance, with infrastructure
projects being delivered on time, on budget,
and with less risk.
The CONNECT Edition comprises
a comprehensive modeling environment,
common
performance
environment,
and common data environment, while
leveraging the Microsoft Azure cloud service
and supporting a hybrid environment
that includes on-premise servers, desktop
applications and mobile apps.
By the end of this information-rich, oneday event, attendees were able to return
to their respective organizations with an
in-depth understanding of how this next
generation of infrastructure engineering

software provides a purposefully connected

environment to improve the performance of
infrastructure projects and assets from design
through construction and operations.

Keynote: Advancing Infrastructure

Kaushik Chakraborty, Vice President

& Regional Executive, Asia South at
Bentley Systems, delivered the keynote
address Advancing Infrastructure. The
presentation included a brief overviewof
the companys 30 years of cumulative BIM
advancements that have enabled its users to
more comprehensively deliver their projects,
as well as to enhance the performance
of the assets being designed, built, and
operated. In discussing the CONNECT
Edition, Chakraborty explained how the
CONNECT Edition enables organizations
and enterprises, including the supply chain
beyond your organizational firewalls, to
connect their projects to a greater degree
than was ever possible.
The
keynote
address
continued
with a roundup of enhancements to its
existing software and key acquisitions
and advancements that expand Bentleys
capabilities. With the new releases, Bentley
has made a major advancement into
construction modeling, which progresses the
design model with construction sequencing,
craft assignments, and materials procurement
status improving project performance,
reliability, and safety.
Chakraborty ended the keynote saying,
The common data environment represents
our strategy to help you further advance
infrastructure. And the core value of this
connectivity is the ability to leverage
digital engineering models throughout the
infrastructure lifecycle from design and
engineering, through construction, and into
operations for better performing projects
and assets.

Advancing Project Delivery

In the final presentation of the morning,

Amit Shrivastava, Technical Director,
Platform & Mobility, provided an update
on technology and capability advancements
for specific Bentley software applications.
He reinforced the message of convergence

emphasized in the keynote and expanded on

how Bentley Could Services enables increased
depth of information modeling and increased
breadth of information mobility.
Shrivastava walked conference attendees
through Bentley advancements fordesign
modeling, analytical modeling, construction
modeling, reality modeling, and asset

performance modeling, citing along the way

key acquisitions that brought new capabilities
to each of these. Notable concepts discussed
were engineering content management,
advanced work packaging, optioneering, and
scenario services.
In the afternoon, attendees participated
in product-focused seminars where Bentley
subject matter experts and application
engineers demonstrated the benefits of
some of Bentleys most popular software
applications, discussing local industry trends
and highlighting best practices and the
latest technologies to improve your project
delivery and information management.
In Delhi and Hyderabad, the featured
topics were: Structural Analysis, Civil
Design, Reality Modeling, Geospatial, and
Pipe Stress & Vessel Analysis.

www.varindia.com

June 2016

45

VAR CORPORATE

Growing Together with Lenovo

Girijesh Singh Thakur, Managing Director - Bluecom
Technologies tells VARINDIA of how his company has grown from
being a mere 30 lakhs company with support from Lenovo -

Tell us about your association with Lenovo. How has been the
journey?
We have been associated with Lenovo ever since the time the company first came to India in
2005, when they took over IBMs PC division and we are with the company for more than 11
years now.
The journey has been the most memorable one. In 2005, we were just an Rs 30 Lakh Turnover
Company and now we have grown to Rs 30 crore. 90% of our business comes from Lenovo;
whether it is desktops, laptops, workstations, storage, server etc. Our bread and butter is plainly
Lenovo.

How has Lenovo been instrumental in shaping your business?

We have grown together with Lenovo and this growth is expected to continue in the coming
years too.

Do you have any suggestions for Lenovo in terms of its channel enablement programs?
Every year we have our assessments and meetings which is held out of India, which is indeed a good thing. At the national level too, in every six
months Lenovo should organize meetings which will enhance our interaction even more. In terms of Partner program, Lenovo fulfils its promises
and introduces good programs from time to time.

How did you help Lenovo grow?

Together we have helped to retain our clients. We have ensured never to run away from a critical situation, but we have always tried finding a
solution to it. If there is some product failure, customers will first approach us since we are the partner, and then we go to the company. A client
like a Media Company will not wait for 3-4 weeks to get their products replaced as it works 24/7. In that case we give our replacement and invest
it from our pocket. Such is the level of belief that we restore in our customers and the brand.

Any Message to partners in the industry that you would like to give.
If you are dedicated to one particular brand, then definitely both the partner and the brand will grow. The partner happens to get more respect
from the brand. Even the customers to whom we have been supplying Lenovo products for the last 10 years have become devoted to the brand.
We have this kind of a relationship with both Lenovo and its customers. If anyone wants to join Lenovo as a Partner they have to be dedicated. If
you sell too many brands, then the partner gets tagged as a super market and a brand do not prefer a super market.

We have seen manifold

growth working with Lenovo
Vikash Didwania of Computer Exchange speaks to VARINDIA of why he thinks Lenovo
is the best company to work with and how the company has lived up to its expectations -

For how long you have been associated with Lenovo?

Computer Exchange first started its association with Lenovo in the year 2005, ever since
Lenovo set foot in the country. We came up with one of Lenovos first retail outlet in the
country, here in Kolkata and we are doing pretty well in terms of getting good deals and
customers.

How has been your journey with Lenovo in terms of support and new
business initiatives?
Lenovo is a wonderful vendor to work with. They know our pain points and they try
to support us as much as possible with favourable policies. This is one of the reasons why
Lenovo has got a good customer and partner retention record.

How instrumental has been the role of Lenovo in shaping your business?
The association has seemed very beneficial for both of us, both from a business and brand building perspective. We have grown manifold;
almost around 5% plunge in growth that we have seen after having started to work with Lenovo.
What are the initiatives taken towards developing the partner welfare programme that you like the most?
Lenovo has got good back-end schemes. Topping it are its various training programs that it organizes from time to time and they become
good grooming sessions. Worth mentioning are its product demonstration policies that we find it really good.

How do you foresee your business growth with the wide range of products from Lenovo?
We expect this growth momentum to continue in future as well. With favourable market conditions and good times ahead, we believe to
take our relationship with Lenovo to the next level.

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VAR CORPORATE

TPC-E Benchmark Result

for System x3650 M5

The TPC-E benchmark is designed to enable customers to objectively measure and compare the
performance and price of various On Line Transaction Processing (OLTP) and database systems.
Lenovo has published the worlds best
two-processor (2P) performance result on
the TPC-E benchmark. This new 2P result
has been achieved on the powerful Lenovo
System x3650 M5 2U rack server and joins
Lenovos current #1 4P (1) and #1 overall/8P
(2) performance. It will result in solidifying
Lenovos dominance of the TPC-E benchmark
and On Line Transaction Processing (OLTP)
performance.
The TPC-E benchmark is designed to
enable customers to objectively measure and
compare the performance and price of various
On Line Transaction Processing (OLTP) and
database systems.
The System x3650 M5 server achieved
the score of 4,938.14 tpsE (transactions per
second E) @ $117.91 USD / tpsE. This score
is the best two-processor performance in the
industry, 30% faster- and with 9% better price/
performance- than the Fujitsu PRIMERGY
RX2540 M1.

The Lenovo Storage E1012 and E1024 Disk

Expansion Enclosures offer universal storage
expansion capabilities. They are designed
to provide simplicity, speed, scalability,
security, and high availability for small
to large businesses. The E1012 and E1024
deliver enterprise-class storage technology in
a cost-effective solution with flexible drive

configurations and RAID or JBOD (nonRAID) host connectivity or Lenovo storage

area network (SAN) array expansion.
Lenovo XClarity, a best-in-class enterprise
tool, helps simplify and centralize discovery,
monitoring, configuration, alert handling and
other management functionality over the
servers lifecycle.

The x3650 M5 achieved this record level

of OLTP performance using Microsoft SQL
Server 2016 Enterprise Edition and Microsoft
Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard Edition.
The x3650 M5 was configured with two Intel
Xeon E5-2699 v4 processors at 2.20 GHz (2
processors/44 cores/88 threads) and 512GB
of TruDDR4 memory.
This result also relied on the new Lenovo
Storage E1024 DAS enclosures. Six E1024
storage enclosures and over 50 SAS SSDs
were used in the benchmark configuration,
attached directly to ServeRAID M5225-2GB
SAS/SATA controllers running RAID-5.

www.varindia.com

June 2016

47

FACE TO FACE

A Two-way Communication Defines

Lenovos Service Strategy
Yu Jie, Vice President of AP Services, Lenovo and Sudipto Ghosh,
Executive Director -Services, Lenovo India speak to VARINDIA on
how the Service Support arm of Lenovo has been doing wonders in
terms of delivering the best of customer experience India is in a pioneering position, with a huge
transformation in the digital services space and
in providing exclusive services to customers.
From the digital services perspective, Lenovo
has social media platforms like Facebook
to leverage and its other initiatives. It also
reaches out to the millennials through Twitter
and YouTube. We have best in class self-help
technical videos with voice-overs on YouTube
which assists the customers to self-diagnose
the issues they face. Some of our customers
share their experiences, write on what issues
they are facing, give feedback and also provide
solution through these platforms, says Yu
Jie, Vice President of AP Services, Lenovo.
Customers can leverage Lenovos services
anytime, anywhere. Earlier, it was through a
call or a visit to the service centers. However,
now Lenovo has added a feature-call back
to assist them further. With this feature in
place, there is ease in the communication
now. One does not have to go through the
trouble of writing or reading long mails, but
one can use the phone and follow the steps.

Our website journey and experience is user

friendly and customer centric. Customers also
find navigating easy and convenient to get the
required informations and downloads, she
says.

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Lenovo has also built an applicationLenCare, an android app, which can be

downloaded on smartphones and other
devices. Thorough this the user can easily
raise a complaint, ask questions, reach out to
the tech team and track the progress on real
time basis. This is also where escalations are
being handled. We would also like to leverage
real-time interaction with our customer and
leverage multiple channels to offer them the
best possible solutions, Yu Jie adds.

An extensively built
Service Network

Lenovo established its exclusive service

centers across the country with a few set
objectives in mind with regards to Lenovo
flagship offerings and deliverables. With the
launch of Exclusive service centres it tries its
new initiatives and time test its benefits on
its customers and set it as a new bench mark.
After evaluating the performance and benefits,
Lenovo then rolls these best practices to all
other service centres of Lenovo. We now
have a total of 650 service centers in India. We
have evolved with the latest state of art process
and tools, to make it easier and efficient for
our customers, Yu Jie beams with pride.
Lenovo has also introduced the token
management system (TMS) that gives a
unique user experience from the time a
customer walks into its service centre, thereby
improving services quality. Some customers
like configurations, some buy accessories,
some wants more personalization. We are
here to assist them according to their needs
and queries. We want to enable the customers
to experience Lenovo differently. We have
experienced engineers who can comment and
address the issues of our customers and there
are a lot of digital models that we are using
for that. With such services, our customer
engagement has increased to about 20 %
undoubtedly, she asserts.
We are heading towards a direction where
we aspire to sell a differential experience for
our customers and offer best in class service.
Our engagement in social media stands out,
and we are the pioneer on this. Customers
face numerous problems and often try to
escalate them on social media and post their
grievances using platforms like Facebook
and Twitter. As an organization Lenovo,
believes in the manta of the 3S - Serve, Solve
and Satisfy and is very sensitive to feedback.
We believe in providing real-time solutions,

Yu Jie
Vice President of AP Services,
Lenovo
something which has led and encouraged
positive feedbacks from our customers,
concedes Sudipto Ghosh, Executive Director
-Services, Lenovo India.
He further cites that Lenovo today has its
customers on social media and online chats,
emails, websites and other channels. It has
become a very useful tool for the company
to understand both consumer insights and
concerns. We use tools like data mine,
which is new in the industry to understand
our customers needs, interests and issues in
real times. These tools are instrumental in
identifying from the tones and key words of
the customers and relatively recommend the
right solution. This is another milestone in the
digital service transformation. This practice
will not only tell us about the customer being
unhappy about a service but also help us in
engaging more with them, he explains.

And so

The Indian market is growing exponentially

and people have a window into the international
market and standard of things. The Lenovo
team here In India, according to Yu Jie is
great and they have been working really hard
to become number 1 in services. Lenovo has
been undoubtedly number 1 from products
and technology perspective, making it the
global leader. However, in the services front,
India market does need a faster transition with
better and improved models. With the kind of
capabilities Lenovo is bringing in, it expects
the country to soon become an AP hub for
services. n

FACE TO FACE

Hyper-Converged Infrastructure
Redefining IT Deployment
The converged infrastructure market has witnessed notable traction in India over the last few years. Organizations across verticals
are moving from the traditional build-it-yourself infrastructure to converged ready-to-use infrastructure that is simple, scalable,
secure and cost-efficient. Throwing more light on this market, Rajesh Ramnani, Regional Director, VCE, the Virtual Computing
Environment Company, shares about EMCs new VxRail Appliance family that is a hyper-converged infrastructure appliances for VMware
environment

yper-converged infrastructure (HCI) is hot right now,

promising to dramatically shift the way infrastructure is
procured, deployed and managed. The market potential in India for
hyper-converged solutions can exceed US$15 million in FY 2016
itself, of which 50% will be in midmarket and the rest will be in large
enterprises and corporates.
Hyper-converged infrastructure is one of the most rapidlygrowing methods for deploying IT in the data center, as IT
departments seek ways to adjust to their new role in business and
new responsibilities entrusted on them. This market is growing at
60% YoY, as per analysts expected to touch US$4 billion+ by 2020.
According to Gartner, the market is expected to become a $5-billion
market by 2019, thereby becoming the category leader by revenue
in pre-integrated full-stack infrastructure products, explains Rajesh
Ramnani, Regional Director, VCE, Virtual Computing Environment
Company.
Converged infrastructure is being widely adopted by all
organizations, considering Buying ready solutions rather than
Building their own. On the hyper-converged front, we have seen
increased traction from IT/ITeS, telecom organizations and service
providers creating their public cloud platforms as well as midmarket enterprises which want hassle-free simple to use and deploy
infrastructure, he asserts.

VCE VxRail Appliance What is it all about?

The VxRail Appliance family is the only integrated and jointly
engineered hyper-converged infrastructure appliances (HCIA) for
VMware environments. It brings together the best of EMC and
VMware including EMCs rich data services and leading systems
management capabilities with VMwares leading hyper-converged
software that includes VMware vSphere, vCenter Server and Virtual
SAN, the simple, powerful, efficient software-defined storage natively
integrated with vSphere all in a single product family with one
point of support.
VxRail Appliances provide a simple, cost-effective hyperconverged infrastructure solution for a wide variety of applications
and workloads. The jointly engineered VxRail Appliances tightly
integrate virtualization, compute, storage and data protection in
one system with a single point of support. With VxRail Appliances,
IT organizations can start small and easily scale capacity and
performance by non-disruptively adding appliances to the cluster
without the investment or upfront planning required with traditional
infrastructure. The appliances are fully loaded with integrated EMC
mission-critical data services, including replication, backup and
cloud tiering at no additional charge. VxRail Appliances integrate
seamlessly into the VCE racks blocks appliances continuum to
simplify scale across the enterprise, explains Ramnani.
VxRail Appliances are managed through a single pane of glass
provided by VxRailManager software, which incorporates vCenter
Server and vRealize Log Insight that support ESRS and other
serviceability capabilities. Additionally, the VxRailAppliances
are discoverable and visible in VCE Vision Intelligent Operations
software.

Rajesh Ramnani
Regional Director, VCE,
the Virtual Computing Environment Company

Big opportunities for partners

The launch of VxRail broadens the scope of opportunity for
partners. In India, EMC has five certified partners in every region.
They will play a significant role to ensure appropriate reach and
support for this technology across India and associated geographies.
Hyper-converged industry is a space which will continue to grow and
partners now have an opportunity to work with EMC and VMware
and redefine this market and establish themselves as leaders in this
space, he adds.
The product being extremely easy to deploy and install, there is no
formal training for the partners. However, EMC conducted three city
trainings on messaging and product positioning, starting during the
product launch and continuing till April.
With VxRail Appliances, EMC wishes to target sectors like
IT/ITeS, BFSI, telecom and federal organizations for large hyperconverged systems. The purpose-built hyper-converged systems
are a good fit in large enterprises, public sector and manufacturing
units. For low to mid-range hyper-converged systems target markets
include enterprise select customers and remote/branch offices of large
corporates, Ramnani sums up.
VxRail Appliances is already available in India from early March. n

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49

BlackBerry Leveraging the Enterprise

Mobility Software space
BlackBerry stands for one of the most secure means of communication on a mobile device. In the past,
BlackBerry 10 or BlackBerry OS has been quite successful in securing communications end-to-end on the
BlackBerry device. Keeping this legacy in mind, Narendra Nayak, MD BlackBerry India shareswith
VARINDIA of how being innovative has helped the company remain competitive innovations run across BlackBerry products.
While it continues to make devices with the
BlackBerry operating system it has also come
up with anAndroid phone, the BlackBerry
PRIV. The PRIV has been addressing a market
that is concerned about security while gaining
access to the Android ecosystem.

Today, if we look at BlackBerryEnterprise

Service 12 (BES12) or the current version BES
12.4, it has the same level of security and
superior functionality over legacy BES 5,
but it supports and manages iOS, Android,
Windows devices, as well asBlackBerry OS or
BlackBerry 10. BlackBerry has been striving
to become a more open platform company,
while bringing the value of security in all
its vision while also focussing on enterprise
mobility management to offer enhanced
mobile services to its customers.
Enterprises are beginning to increase the
productivity of the services in their companies
and BlackBerry is helping its customers to
ensure they can do this in a secure manner.
It has in the last few quartersmade several
acquisitions that serve this purpose; for
instance it acquired WatchDox which is in
the enterprise file sync and share (EFSS) space
and secures shared documents on mobile.
The other company which it has acquired is
AtHoc, which is in the secure communications
and messaging space. GOOD Technology
was another acquisition made in September
2015. GOOD has one of the best levels of
certification in the industry for securing
applications. Another company which
BlackBerry acquired is Encription that is in
the security consulting and services space.

Technically, BlackBerry today is in three

different spaces- Enterprise Software, Devices
and the third is what it calls BlackBerry
Technology
Solutions.
BlackBerry
Technology Solutions is essentially in the
embedded software and IoT space and some
of its products that it has includes QNX, an
operating system, CERTICOM and Paratek.
We will continue to push towards making
the Android phone as secure as our BB10 and
BBOS phones, because if we can do that then
there is a brand pull in the first place, Nayak
points out.

Narendra Nayak
MD
BlackBerry India

Large universities and federal governments

have been using AtHoc which allow users
to send messages to multiple end points,
whether it is a desk phone, a mobile phone,
SMS, a call, etc. By taking these steps, the
company has become a truly cross-platform
enterprise software management company
and helpedorganisations drive productivity
through mobility in a secured manner.

Android and iOS becoming popular, people

still wanted to use our software (to manage
non Blackberry devices) because it is one of
the most secure solutions available. As a result,
we have completely repositioned ourselves as
a software company that also makes devices,
states Narendra Nayak, MD BlackBerry
India.

In the past, BlackBerry used to be known

only as a devices company that made software
that managed these devices. In spite of

BlackBerry has one of the strongest patent

portfolios and has started monetizing on that.
On the software side it has become a truly
open platform company;hence all software

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The Future ahead...

BlackBerry wants to reposition itself as an
enterprise software management companyand
this happens to be its primary strategy in India
as well as globally. Every large enterprise,
legal firm, financial company, everybody
who started with E-mail was a BlackBerry
customer. They still use BlackBerry but in
addition to that, they probably went ahead
and brought in other solutions as well. I think
the opportunity for us is to now go back and
win some of those customers back, Nayak
says.
In addition to that,BlackBerry has been
rebuilding its distribution system which is
geared towards its enterprise customers, along
with bringing in more people with software
knowledge and software support sales skills.
BlackBerry will indeed establish itself as
the leading enterprise player in this market
very soon. n

VAR MOBILITY

Lenovo rolls out Vibe

K5 Smartphone

Lenovo has launched

Vibe K5. It comes powerpacked with a 64-Bit
Qualcomm Snapdragon
415
Octacore
CPU
combined with a 12.7cm
(5) high-definition display.
The vibrant 12.7cm (5)
HD display with 720x1280

pixel resolution, gives crisp

content streaming and
viewing experience. This
display along with two
high-performance stereo
speakers produces the best
multimedia experience in
this price segment. The
Dolby Atmos- enabled
speakers help minimize
noise and voice distortion
when playing voice clips

and songs, automatically

fine-tuning any audio
experience for listeners.
With
the
beautiful
display and power packed
entertainment consumers
can have an experience
like never before.
Crafted for maximum

comfort with tapered

edges to fit the palm, Vibe
K5 is not only the most
stylish but also the only
smartphone in its price
segment to have robust
metal
construction.
Equipped with a 13MP
rear camera and a 5MP
selfie camera, Vibe K5 is
your perfect companion
whenever you feel like
capturing moments.

LG unveils Modular Smartphone G5

LG Electronics has
unveiled its modular
smartphone G5, which
is also accompanied with
devices like LG CAM
Plus, LG 360 CAM and

LG 360 VR in the Indian

market at Rs.52,990. This
modular
smartphone
comes with a sleek metal
uni-body featuring a
Slide-out battery and a
Modular Type design for
better user experience.
LGs innovative
Modular Type design
gives the LG G5 the ability

to transform into a digital

camera. LG G5 has two
cameras on the rear: one
with a standard 78-degree
lens and another with a
135-degree wide angle lens,

the widest available in any

smartphone. The LG G5
features a collection of
powerful photo effects
including Pop-out Picture,
Film Effect and Auto
Shot. The 5.3-inch Quad
HD IPS Quantum display
on the LG G5 offers an
Always-on feature.

Lava rolls out

ASUS Launches the Zenfone Go
X81 Smartphone 4.5 2nd Generation Phone

LAVA International
has announced the launch
of Lava X81, a smartphone
with a combination of
impressive design and
technology.
The new device offers
an exceptional package
of good looks, ultra-fast
internet, un-interrupted
calling
and
smooth
video playback. It is a
perfect gadget for those
who love flaunting their
smartphones in their
social circles as well as
look for reliability and
performance from their
personal device. Priced
at Rs.11,500/-, Lava X81
will be available in Space
Grey
colours
across
all the national retail
stores and multi-brand
outlets and exclusively
on Flipkart from June
13, 2016 onwards. The
smartphone will also be
available in Gold from
the next month onwards.
Gaurav
Nigam,
Head of Product, Lava
International, said, It
is an immense delight
for us to announce Lava
X81, a smartphone with
a powerful combination
of design and technology.
It is not just a complex
maze of components put
together it is, in the
truest sense, a device that
has a style quotient and
flaunt value of its own.
Through X81, we aspire
to offer a device which is
stylish and reliable, and at
the same time enhances
the overall smartphone
experience
of
our
consumers through its
technological excellence.
Lava X81 is the
smartest and the fastest
smartphone which is
powered by a 64-bit
1.3GHz MediaTek QuadCore processor along with
3GB DDR3 RAM. It also
offers an onboard storage
of 16GB ROM, which is
further expandable up
to 64 GB, providing the
consumers with ample
storage for music, videos,
pictures, applications and
other data.

ASUS has launched

the Zenfone Go 4.5 2nd
generation ZB452KG, a
3G- enabled smartphone
with 4.5 inch display
in India. Suited for the

strength, and is available

in two different camera
specifications 0.3 MP +
5 MP (front + rear) priced
at Rs. 5,299 and 2 MP + 8
MP (front + rear) priced

budget
segment,
the
phone will be available
on Flipkart, Snapdeal,
Amazon,
PayTM,
Shopclues and in ASUS
Exclusive Stores and all
other offline stores.
Sporting a stunning
look, the Zenfone Go 2nd
generation offers a unique
balance of beauty and

at Rs. 5,699
The phone comes with
an 854480 (FWVGA)
resolution for reproducing
bright and vivid colors.
The device will be
available in 6 colors to suit
different user personalities
Glamour Red, Ceramic
White, Yellow, Silver
Blue, Gold and Silver.

Micromax extends its

product portfolio
Micromax
has
launched
two new selfie
smartphones
Bolt Selfie and
Canvas Selfie 4.
Shubhajit
Sen,
Chief
Marketing
O f f i c e r ,
Micromax,
said, Our Bolt
Selfie has been
designed
to
keep the new
and
young
smartphone
users especially women
in the tier-II & -III cities
which have limited options
and avenues to shop, are
very price-conscious and
yet desire a perfect selfie
experience. While with the
Canvas Selfie 4 and its tap
sensor, we are upgrading
the selfie experience of
our young hyper-social
youngsters
who
are
looking for a perfect
integration of innovation,
style and performance
with an excellent selfie
experience.

Bolt Selfie offers users

with an exciting selfie
experience. It is intended
to break through the
wallet-heavy
selfie
smartphones, making the
trend easily available and
accessible to a larger cross
section of users and first
time smartphone users.
It produces perfect selfies
wherever, whenever with
a 5MP camera, both front
and rear. The 4G enabled
smartphone is packed
with a 1GHz Quad-Core
processor and 1GB RAM
and 8 ROM, expandable
to 32GB.

www.varindia.com

June 2016

51

VAR GRIEVANCE

TAIT Addresses Twin issues of Cheque

Dishonour and Income/Direct Tax Rules
According to the 'Society for Fast
Justice', there are more than 3 lakh cheque
bounce cases pending with the courts,
with the litigation running for anywhere
between one year to ten years in Mumbai
alone. While the law related to incidents of

cheque dishonour says that cases should be

disposed of within six months, the courts
themselves don't aide by this guideline.
As a result, common citizens and small
business owners face a lot of harassment at
the hands of petty officials.
Also, Maharashtra is the only state in
India that charges 2% court fee from the
petitioner to file a cheque dishonour case
in a court of law. Therefore, it has been
estimated that an amount of more than Rs.
25,000 crore is involved in cheque dishonor
disputes in Maharashtra alone. As a result,
the court fee collected is estimated to be of
the order of Rs. 500 crore.
To address this issue related to disputes
arising out of dishonour of cheques, and
Income Tax issues faced by their members
at length, Mumbai-based Trade Association
of Information Technology (TAIT) has
conducted its Knowledge Series workshop
at Mumbai. The workshop session was
addressed by Vijay Agarwal, Founder
of Bounced Cheque Victims Forum and
Vimal Punmiya, CA and Vice Chairman of
All India Business Council. Both speakers
talked about the need for members to put
up a united front against the prevailing
sloth in the judicial system, especially in
cheque dishonour cases and disputes related
to the Income Tax Act and Direct Taxes.
The 'Society For Fast Justice' was
formed with an objective to provide speedy,
affordable justice to citizens through the
courts. It takes up local common issues
affecting citizens, non-response from
public agencies and direct or indirect issues
affecting citizens. The forum has filed
three PILs (public interest litigations) in
the Bombay High Court and provides free
legal advice to citizens on various issues.
Insisting on the need to protest and

52

June 2016

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fight collectively against delays and

imposition of unnecessary penalties by
the judiciary in cheque dishonour cases,
Vijay Agarwal, Founder of Bounced
Cheque Victims Forum said, "The business
community is being made to suffer in
terms of wasted man days, and opportunity
loss, due to inefficient functioning of the
judicial system. In fact, the Government
of Maharashtra is penalising any petitioner
who wishes to seek justice through the
courts by imposing a 2% court fee on the
amount of the cheque returned unpaid. No
other state in India charges such a fee from
the petitioner."
Agarwal also added that despite having
collected hundreds of crores of rupees by way
of court fee, the judiciary in Maharashtra
has not been able to build necessary quality
infrastructure or fill vacancies in courts.
He appealed to the business community
to join 'Society for Fast Justice' which has
decided to file an appeal with the courts for
justice to be meted out to cheque dishonour

petitioners.
Vimal Punmiya, CA and Vice Chairman
of All India Business Council addressed
the members on the issue of recent
reforms made in the Income Tax Act and
various benefits available to the business
community. He enlightened members on

105 members attend

proceedings, resolve
to issue joint appeal
to the concerned
authorities to
speedily resolve 3
lakh pending cases
between 1-10 years
old, accounting for
over Rs. 25,000 crore
of blocked capital

the voluntary disclosure of undisclosed

Income Tax scheme and the Direct Taxes
disputes resolution scheme.
Punmiya said, "The recent amendments
made to the Income Tax Act relate to
withdrawal of appeals category in scrutiny

proceedings, various reliefs, rebates and

exemptions given to the assessee in recent
editions of the Union Budget, changes in
compliance procedures and the presumptive
taxation scheme." He also discussed the
benefits available to business organisations
and the rights and duties of the assessee
during income tax proceedings.
Rajendra J. Thacker, President, Society
For Fast Justice said, "Delay in justice is
the root cause of all illegal activities. Lack
of deterrent punishment to culprits is
another cause for all undesired activities
taking place in the society. This laxity on
the part of the government and the courts
has encouraged the unscrupulous and
the wrongdoers to carry on their illegal
activities with impunity."
Rushabh Shah, President, TAIT said,

"We select topics for our workshops wisely

so that our members can derive maximum
benefit for their time. It gives us immense
pleasure to receive such an overwhelming
response, with 105 members having
attended the workshop."
Several TAIT members appreciated the
sessions. n

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June 2016

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GWAW16000796_VAR India Mag_34h x 24w cm_June.indd 1

56 pages including cover

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