VARINDIA IT MAGAZINE

To enable Indian businesses to promote their products and services, the Confederation of Indian Industry has announced the launch of a new online business gateway for its members. The marketplace is powered by the secure technology platform from cloudBuy, the global e-commerce solution provider. T.T. Ashok, Chairman, CII National SME Council, said, “We are pleased to be able to bring this e-commerce gateway to global supply chains to the CII members. They are invited to list their company, products and services and trade securely online. We have made sure that the marketplace has low transaction costs and delivers fast payments direct to sellers’ bank accounts. We believe the initiative is a simple way to increase visibility. It will provide Indian businesses with a new gateway to the world.” Lyn Duncan, CEO of cloudBuy, said, “We are delighted to be working in collaboration with CII in India to deliver the B2B marketplace infrastructure to enable secure e-commerce on the CII bu...

NVIDIA has announced the India availability of the new Quadro M6000 and Quadro K1200 graphics cards for professional design and visualization applications. The company has kicked off a four-city roadshow, which began on April 24, 2015 in New Delhi, to demonstrate the value proposition of the professional graphics cards solutions to customers. NVIDIA will also showcase its revolutionary Iray technology, a highly interactive and intuitive physically based rendering process. In combination with Quadro graphics cards, Iray provides the highest level of visual realism and interactivity in design workflows by simulating the physical behavior of light and materials, while more than doubling the rendering speed. Therefore, professionals do not need expert knowledge of computer graphics techniques to quickly achieve photorealistic results. Through the roadshow, NVIDIA will seek to increase awareness of the applications of the new Quadro M6000 and K1200 cards in a specialized setting and de...

Philips Mobile has announced the launch of two new Philips Mobile feature phones – E310 and E160. With powerful battery and user-friendliness, the two phones aim to simplify mobile phone usage for consumers. The two phones live up to the Philips mobile legacy of long-lasting battery life, thus ensuring extended talk time for consumers. The new Philips mobile devices address these conveniences in addition to several unique features to make the phone useful to specific target segments. S.S. Bassi, Country Manager – SAARC, Sangfei Mobility, said, “We have already seen a great traction for our feature phones in India. As a brand that has touched lives in India in every aspect, Indians look towards Philips for durability and quality. Through our newly-launched phones we are building on the advantages of feature phones of extended battery life and affordability to give users many more features commonly found in smartphones.” E310 The successor of the Philips X2566, the E310 has be...

With a view to connecting the one billion citizens of India, the telecom association, COAI, has announced “Sabka Internet, Sabka Vikas”, an initiative to   connect the one billion unconnected citizens of India. Launching the online platform sabka internet.in, COAI has reiteratred that Internet should be for all and should not remain the preserve of a few.  The Association has invited all stakeholders to have a comprehensive and informed debate on the subject of Net Neutrality to develop a framework that caters to the infrastructure and diverse socio-economic needs of the country. The leadership team of the member-companies of COAI, namely  Ashok Sharma of Aircel, Gopal Vittal of Airtel, Himanshu Kapania of Idea Cellular, Shanker Adawal of Reliance Jio, Rajiv Bawa of Telenor, Arvind Bali of Videocon, and Sunil Sood of Vodafone India, were present to reaffirm their commitment to “Sabka Internet, Sabka Vikas” programme and promote Net Equality. Elaborating its pos...

ZTE has announced its net profit rose 41.9% to RMB883 million or $142 million in Q1 2015, whereas revenue grew up to 10.2% to RMB21 billion. The operating revenue from telecom software system, services and other products increased 23.4%. Its growth is from video and networks terminal product, in addition to services. ZTE will focus on its main operations of carrier Networks,enterprize bussiness and mobile devices.ZTE will committed for developing solutions for smarter networks to support carrier in their transformation in to information based operations. ZTE said revenue from Carriers’ Networks increased 8.9 per cent – driven by growth in sales of products such as wireless communication systems, wireline switch and access systems, routers and router switches... See more

According to reports by Boston Consulting Group in India, the number of Internet users is expected to reach 400-550 million in 2018 from 200 million in 2014. Internet Users are spending more time with their smartphones as they discover new capabilities and content. Indians, particularly rural consumers, have bypassed the PC and using mobile devices to get online on the go. The first destinations for digital consumers are websites and apps such as Google, Facebook and YouTube .The use of vernacular content online is estimated to increase from 45 per cent in 2013 to more than 60 per cent in 2018... See more

The Telecommunications Department has decided to conduct a meeting on net neutrality after examining various aspects of net neutrality. For this purpose, a Committee has been constituted in the Department of Telecommunications. This Committee has decided to conduct a meeting with Multi-Stakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) today, i.e. 27th April. The terms of reference of the Committee are to examine the pursuit of net neutrality from a public policy objective, its advantages and limitations to examine the economic impact on the telecom sector that arises from the existence of a regulated telecom sector and also unregulated content and applications sector, including over the top (OTT) services. It will also assess and specify qualifications on the applicability of the principle of net neutrality from the security, traffic management, economic, privacy and other stand-points and recommend overall policy, regulatory and technical responses in the light of examination and assessment of ...

What is NetRack’s current focus in the India market? We have always stood up to address the challenges faced by the Industry. Our major focus will be to cater the industries with new products and innovative solutions, with a capability of addressing the most prominent issues like power, cooling, rack space and energy efficiency. This year, we aspire to increase our reach in the international market and to give customers the best possible service. At present, NetRack has a strong foothold in ME & EU markets. Our primary focus will be on meeting the increasing demand of products like data center racks, networking racks, lab tables etc. This will in turn increase our productivity as businesses are continuously placing greater demand for upgrading their infrastructure with innovative products and solutions. How important are the upcountry markets for your brand? How are these markets driving business for your brand? To drive business, we are building a strong partner base an...

Does Canon have any plans of entering the Home Theater Projector space? In your views will large screen TVs drive the growth of Home Projectors in India? Definitely Canon will be looking into entering into the home segment which is one of the important verticals. The reason is that a lot of people like to have small home theatre in their house and the new series that we have launched is going to answer those. One of the features that the new series of projectors have is short throw, which means that even in a small apartment one can have a very good projection. One do not have to go for a large screen which is definitely going to be very expensive.With a projector, one can have the size as bigger than a large screen. A large screen will cost about 5 lakhs and with projectors one can get very good quality of picture. So, we definitely like to target the home segment. How much innovation do you encourage in your products? Our products initially might be slightly expensive as compa...

The DMS market is emerging as a huge market opportunity. A large number of offices are still paper based and this is what makes India a key market for DMS solutions. Yet, the growth of this solution is not how everybody had expected it to be – The world around us is changing every minute. It is becoming hard to predict which new or disruptive innovations will emerge tomorrow. Until a few years ago, we had never heard of Cloud Computing, and, today, it seems like no enterprise architecture is complete without a Cloud strategy. With the Digital Transformation wave fast catching up with global enterprises, digitization and process automation have now become essential for productivity and work efficiency. The nexus of forces – SMAC (Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud) – is further fuelling this global phenomenon wherein almost all paper-based data is getting converted into digital information. They are proving to be the latest game-changers with regard to driving accessibility, flexibi...

Expanding its presence in retail and telepresence services, state-run telecom infrastructure firm RailTel is aiming to double its turnover to Rs 1,000 crore in course of the coming two years. “We are targeting revenue Rs 1,000 crore over the next two years from around Rs 550 crore earned between April 2014 and March 2015. Retail broadband is going to ne another focus area,” said R.K. Bahuguna, Chairman and Managing Director – RailTel. According to him, enterprise business, projects and retail broadband verticals would be the future growth drivers for the company to achieve the revenue target. Presently, 25 percent of its earnings account from the enterprise connectivity fees from telecom firms while another 25 percent comes in from the government including educational institutes. Cable multi-system operators contribute 15 per cent to the revenue. The share of Indian railways to the revenue is 10 percent. The mini ratna company will also increase its optical fibre network by an...

Whether you believe it or not, India’s domestic electronics hardware demand is going to reach US$400 billion by 2020. However, our domestic production will be around US$100 billion, judging by the current levels of production. This means that, to meet the domestic demand, we will have to import electronics hardware worth US$300 billion annually. Policy watchers say that, at this rate, our electronic goods import will be higher than that of oil imports. Have we been caught unaware of this looming threat? The answer is both yes and no. Yes, because such a precarious situation could have been anticipated at least two decades back and corrective steps could have been taken to ward off the occurrence of such an eventuality, which has great economic ramifications. No, because despite being aware of the rollout of the sinister economic happening, there is not much that could have been done to prevent it. Let me go into the history to set the stage. In the early 1980s, when we started l...

Comcast has announced that it is likely to drop its $45.2-billion proposal to buy Time Warner Cable (TWC). Comcast is facing opposition from FCC and DoJ officials to go ahead with the deal to buy TWC. Comcast had announced the merger deal fourteen months ago. It unsuccessfully made several attempts to convince FCC and DoJ. Comcast is also a technology leader in broadband. Comcast has increased the Internet speed 12 times in the past 12 years, whereas TWC located in geographic areas has more than 30,000 hotspots, in Los Angeles and New York City. Comcast’s board will meet to finalize the decision on Thursday, and the final verdict is expected on Friday. Time Warner Cable executives plan to tell the shareholders at the conference called next Thursday how the company can survive independently. Comcast has to focus on adding more Internet subscribers to defend its pay-TV business, whereas TWC pursued other possible merger partners like John Malone’s Charter Communications. Online ...

BSNL has announced its unlimited free calling schemes during night hours would be operational between 9PM and 7AM from its fixed line phones to any operator, including mobile phones anywhere in the country from May 1. All major landline general plans of rural and urban areas, landline special plans as well as major combos are covered under this scheme. As per the latest TRAI data, BSNL which dominates the landline market was the biggest loser of fixed-line customers in February, while Airtel emerged as top gainer. The company had over 1.66 crore landlines at the end of February... See more

Lenovo has introduced A5000 smartphone with non-replaceable 4,000mAh battery. The Chinese device maker has launched the phone in Russia at RUB12,000 (approx. Rs.14,000). The main USP of this smartphone is its huge 4000mAh non-replaceable battery. This phone is also available in India for Rs.10,250. It appears that, unlike its last three launches (A6000, A6000 Plus and A7000), the phone will be sold at physical stores and will not be limited to online flash sales. Perhaps, this is the reason why the phone is priced higher compared to the three despite sporting inferior specifications.  It can easily connect with Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi, 3G and GPS. A5000 comes with special nano coating that makes resistant to splashes... See more