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VOLUME XVIII ISSUE 10 JUNE 2017 PRICE Rs. 50

IBM Cloud on an expansion spree Canon revolutionizes the industrial printer industry

2 May 2017 www.varindia.com

3 www.varindia.com May 2017

4 May 2017 www.varindia.com


Samsung to invest Rs. 4,915 Crore in Noida facilitySamsung Electronics has announced

an investment of Rs. 4,915 crore in India for smartphones, refrigerators and flat panel televisions. Samsung’s investment reconfirms its commitment to ‘Make in India’ and ‘Make for India’ and to the state of Uttar Pradesh.

T h e expansion of the Noida plant

on an additional 35 acres of land

adjacent to the current facility will double the production capacity of both mobile phones and refrigerators; further consolidating Samsung’s leadership in the mobile phones and consumer electronics segments. The investment proposal was recently approved by the Uttar Pradesh government under its Mega Policy.

GST e-way bill implementation postponed by few months The centre suggested that the

“implementation of the ‘e-way bill’ system could be postponed by a few month. The ‘e-way bill’ requires movement of goods above Rs 50, 000 to be pre-registered online, on the GSTN website. The GST Council headed by finance minister Arun Jaitley along with representatives from the states had sat in April come out with the draft e-way bill rules.

The GST Council agreed to rope in the National Informatics Centre (NIC) to work along with the GST-Network (GSTN) to assess if an all India e-way bill system can be created in a short time-frame. As per the draft, GSTN would generate e-way bills that will be valid for 1-15 days, depending on distance to be traveled—one day for 100 km and 15 days for more than 1,000 km transit.

NEC launches COE for Analytics Huawei and Microsoft to expand Server Product Portfolio

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46pgHP introduces GST Solutions with KPMG

15th INFOTECH FORUM 2017 Making a Digital-ready Future possible

pg38

6 June 2017 www.varindia.com

Awareness in Digital culture continues to proliferate

HELLO INDIA

Technology is changing our responses, reactions and behaviours. Cultivating a digital culture is a way of business that understands how technology is changing behaviours, work and market dynamics. It helps all

stakeholders grow to compete more effectively in an ever-shifting business climate. Social media is potentially a powerful and risk-filled arena for most organizations. Because of both opportunity

and risk involved, social media activities are well suited to process mapping and planning. For wider connectivity and influencing to be a part of social media, there has been a large assignment to the developers in all the big five companies like Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft. A big question is: How do these companies make money, given the fact that they more or less give away their products gratis. But it still doesn’t explain where the revenue comes from. This is not only a unique observation, but it’s a crucial one. If you are not paying for the product, the product is “you”. The real transaction here isn’t you receiving enjoyment in the form of a free temporary distraction created by a media company at great expense, but rather the media company is just taking the footprints by renting your eyeballs to its advertisers.

Organizations use social media for the promotion of their various products by reaching out to the target

audience. This social networking addiction is increasing day by day. Hence, there is a need for investment in the digital culture, which could help reach everyone in the organization.

Going forward, security and data protection has become an integral part of business establishments. With the rise of digital technology, cyber threats have also become part and part of business, and are becoming more and more complex.

Cybercrime cases clearly reflect the use of social engineering, a technique used by cyber crooks. They search for people

who have linked their Facebook accounts to their cellphone numbers and then hack into the accounts to steal their personal information. Social engineering in the cyber world uses the human elements as well as technical knowledge to attack victims. 90 per cent of businesses in India say their organizations are at risk because of the complexity of business and IT operations. Cyber crooks play with your psychology before targeting you. Since the servers of many social networking sites are not in India, solving such cybercrime cases becomes difficult for the police. It is the need of the hour for the policy makers to act on this front.

Technology will continue to grow exponentially. In India, the growth of Internet shows that digital transformation will continue to drive IP traffic.

The number of Internet users is projected to increase from 373 million in 2016 to 829 million in 2021. We are witnessing a burgeoning rise in the usage of mobile applications and connectivity by end-users and our digital economy is expected to touch a $1-trillion mark in the next four years.


3

CCTV and Video SurveillanceNo. 1 Worldwide


Website: www.varindia.com

CONTENTSPublisher: Deepak Kumar SahuEditor: S Mohini RatnaExecutive Editor: Dr. Vijay Anand Copy Editor: C. M. Dutta Consulting Editor: Pravin PrashantDeputy Editor: Samrita Baruah Sub - Editor: Aparna MullickArt Director: Rakesh Kumar Network Administrator: Ashok Kumar SinghManager-IT: Subhash MohantaManager-SEO: Bidyadhar Behera

BUSINESS:Commercial Manager: Amit Kumar JhaSr. Marketing Manager: Ashok Ranjan DashCirculation Executive: Manish KumarMarketing Manager: Dipendra Kumar

CORPORATE OFFICE: VAR House, A-84A/3 Rose Apartment, Paryavaran complex, Ignou Road, new Delhi - 110030Tel: 011-41656383, 46061809Email: [email protected]

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34pg

INDUSTRY WATCH

45| India to be a $1 trillion digital economy in 4 years: Ravi Shankar Prasad

46| HP introduces GST Solutionswith KPMG

IN FOCUS

26| Innovation is always atthe forefront of Lenovo’s breakthrough products

CHANNEL BUZZ

29| 41 'Gems of Digital India' unearthed and facilitated

51| FDS and Supertron bags honour at The Oval, London

COVER STORY

34| Will GSP-ASP model help corporatesinGSTadoption?

VAR CORPORATE

24| DigiVyapaaris get the GST advantage from Dell

32| “We are working closely with large installed base customers onIoTsolutions”

EVENT

30| Fortinet unveils new businessopportunities at its annualSAARC Partner Conference

38| 15th INFOTECH FORUM 2017 – Making a Digital-ready Future possible

REGULARS

Round About 10

Hot Bytes 12, 14

On the Ramp 16, 18

Voice N Data 20

Channel Buzz 22

Movers & Shakers 58

FACE TO FACE

25| Acer helps traders, businesses and partnerstotransitionsmoothlytoGST

28| No Compromise on Juniper’s ‘Partner First’ Strategy

50| Netmagic treading the channel ‘path’ for business growth

51| Epson: A Pioneer in 3LCD projector

VAR SECURITY

52| Commvault witnesses triple digit y-o-y growth in India

VAR MOBILITY

54| iVOOMi sees opportunity in India Market

VAR SPEAK

48| Partners grapple with GST compliance, demand more clarity

VAR ANALYSIS

56| The Past, Present and Future of Handset Market



ROUND ABOUT

What does job loss in the IT industry portend?

If you were to ask me what is the high point of India-US partnership in recent times, I would say it is ICT. Our engagement in the sector

brought about a new bonhomie and direction. We started considering each other as partners since there is a greater understanding and appreciation of each other’s skills and capabilities. The US investments in India paid off in terms of creating employment and income to the Indians in diverse fields, inasmuch as Indian investments in the US created durable assets and much-coveted employment.

Yet, undeniably, of late, there have been lone and concerted voices emanating to whittle down what we have achieved over the years, and more than that, for denying our countries the chance to reach our true potentials. Fears are being expressed in the open and in closed doors about the loss of employment in the IT sector globally and specific to our two countries. Fearing that, there are speculations about retrenchment even by large Indian corporations in anticipation of loss of business. Some of them are seemingly speculations and yet there is a lurking fear that it could be true if the situation is allowed to drift.

Manufacturing has taken a toll more than any other sector in the U.S. America has lost some seven million manufacturing jobs. It is easier to increase productivity in manufacturing than it is in services. Earlier, it was agriculture versus manufacturing. The proportion of the workforce engaged in agriculture fell on account of mechanization. Now, the same plight had visited manufacturing. The same reasons cannot be attributed. Most of the jobs have travelled from the U.S. to countries like Japan and China, which had specialized in manufacturing technologies, achieved economies of scale and perfected the art of manufacturing at the lowest cost, outsmarting destinations where labour and capital had become costly. Automobiles, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, electronics, and textiles are some of the sectors that have travelled from the U.S. to other destinations.

There is a long list of countries which have lost jobs in manufacturing due to automation. These include Britain, Germany, France, and Australia. It will be instructive to see why automaton is taking place in a more aggressive way than ever before. Shortage of manpower could be one reason. Two, constant innovation, technological breakthroughs and cost optimization can be others.

The services sector, which includes tourism, IT and IT-enabled services, hospitality and healthcare, have registered impressive growth in terms of employment. Of late, there is a fear that job losses have started affecting these sectors on account of automation. Artificial intelligence, chip technology, drones, robotics, and Internet of Things are scripting a productivity transformation in the services sector. These technologies can replace human interventions. For instance, several millions of banking jobs can be replaced by technology. That is also true in every segment. Take for instance online booking of rail or air tickets. Earlier, we had a number of counters in the booking stations to manually book either train or airline tickets. Now with the use of technology, these jobs can be done online. What will happen to a number of people engaged in these professions? Will they become redundant?

The industry association NASSCOM in a recent statement said that it is taking care of the future needs of IT professionals. The training curricula should undergo a change to make the present and future supply of manpower relevant to the industry needs. That is quite a challenge, given the fact that the pace of automation will gather momentum in the coming years worldwide and if India has to maintain the headstart in IT, it has to be more focussed on training them in superior and complex levels.

Obviously, IT and IT-enabled services is the largest segment in the services sector. The IT sector is unique in many ways. It is distance neutral and is not confined to geographies. It cannot function in seclusion unlike manufacturing or agriculture, which are more dependent on local availability of resources, polices and comparative advantages. A message that we send through e-mail, WhatsApp or any other digital platform

can be accessed wherever you have the connectivity. When a new IT product is developed, it is meant for the whole world and the demand is not confined to a particular country or region. This means that IT and IT-enabled services, belong to a different league and at the same set of rules and regulations that are applicable to other segments should not be imposed on this sector. That will kill the very spirit of IT, its global reach, creative appeal and its brain power. Its canvass is broad and all- encompassing.

Against this backdrop, assuming that there is a rupture in the chain, it will upset the whole system. Let us take, for example, any law enacted to make outsourcing of IT works difficult by imposing artificial barriers. The home country industry will then be forced to do things domestically. That will not be cost-effective and against the tenets of a free economy and a liberal approach to the growth of business. This will adversely affect the bottom lines of the companies. The profit is hit and gradually the entire investments in the sector become non-functional. Such a phenomenon has happened worldwide.

A digitally strong India needs IT platforms on a regular basis, be they satellites, drones, chips, medical devices and what have you. These things are being imported from the developed world, particularly from the U.S. What I am trying to drive home is that economic engagement is not a zero-sum game. It benefits all stakeholders. Let us evolve policies based on advantages and inherent strengths and not based on emotions, pent-up ire and feelings other than economics. No country or region in the present day is self-reliant. Interdependence and engagement are the rules of the game. Let us not vitiate that age-old dictum. Playing to the gallery can at best help in whipping up passions and emotions. Business is not the one based on these sentiments. At the end of the day, people look at the tangible results that they have achieved and not how many people are packed off from a country to save jobs for the locals. Let not IT or California meet the same plight as automobiles and Detroit! n


For more details, please contact [email protected]


HOT BYTES

Bodhtree Consulting to help Infosys in GST filings

NVIDIA ties up with Aegis School to conduct trainings on AI

IBM Cloud on an expansion spree

CyberArk announces its Channel Partner Program

Keysight successfully acquires Ixia for $1.6 billion

MediaTek expands its India presence

Bodhtree Consulting has entered into a

strategic partnership with Infosys as an Application Service Provider “ASP”, wherein the clients of Infosys will have an option to utilize GSP platform of Bodhtree Consulting for their GST filings. The size of the project could be over Rs.200 crore and we are working towards realizing these revenues in the next three years.

Besides, Bodhtree has

announced its strategic relationship with Stratfit Technologies (Stratfit) a company promoted by Daniel McKee, USA-based Celebrity trainer and Olympic-certified coach, Nagarjuna Akkineni, leading film personality, K. Sriram, Senior Professional and Entrepreneur, and G. Vamshi Raju, Entrepreneur. Bodhtree will bring in its IT solutions capabilities to the table to strengthen the investment in this sector.

Aegis School of Data Science &

Telecommunication and NVIDIA have entered into a strategic partnership at the Data Science Congress to impart trainings on Artificial Intelligence (AI) for corporates and individuals and build a large pool of skilled manpower in the Deep Learning space to fill the skill gaps.

Sundar R. Nagalingam, Head – Deep Learning Practice, NVIDIA India, said, “There is a huge need for developers who not only understand AI, but know how to apply it. As an AI compute company, our cutting-edge technological

innovation finds new ways of training the developers as well as the teaching and learning experience. Through this partnership, we aspire to create and develop skills that will help solve some of the world’s most challenging problems.”

IBM Cloud is the leader in Enterprise

Cloud with 55+ cloud centers in 19 countries. There are currently 4,000 different start-ups utilizing

on IBM Cloud. The company runs more than 100 billion transactions a day on IBM systems and offers 160+ cloud services

across cognitive, IoT, blockchain, data, etc.

With a vision to be the preferred digital transformation partner for its clients, partners and the

ecosystem in India, IBM is at the forefront, helping businesses bring their technology aspirations to life.

CyberArk has announced new

CyberArk Channel Partner Program offerings to enhance partners’ privileged account security expertise and ability to drive new business opportunities in India. In addition, Inflow Technologies and M.Tech will bolster channel support.

“As one of the largest, fastest growing markets in the world, and with high technology adoption, India is a country with

tremendous potential for CyberArk,” said Rohan Vaidya, Regional Director, India, CyberArk. “The scale and of scope of attacks on the most valuable data within organisations means cyber security is an increasingly important board-level issue. CyberArk’s ability to break the cycle of cyber attacks by delivering a critical layer of security will enable businesses across India to implement proactive security strategies.”

Ke y s i g h t Technologies and

Ixia have announced that Keysight has finalized its acquisition of Ixia.

“We are pleased to have quickly brought the Ixia acquisition to completion and excited to add Ixia’s deep bench of talent to the Keysight team. This complementary combination accelerates several of our strategies for growth, including expanding our software solutions and software engineering capability. We have also broadened our reach within the communications development lifecycle, and will build and grow Ixia’s

established strong position in the fast-growing visibility and security markets,” said Ron Nersesian, Keysight President and CEO.

“Keysight’s leadership now encompasses a unique range of end-to-end solutions for the development of next-generation technologies and optimizing and securing networks,” Nersesian added.

MediaTek has announced the

opening up of its new facility in Bengaluru, the Silicon Valley of India. The new facility located at RMZ Eco World in Marathalli will provide R&D, sales and marketing support to MediaTek India.

The new facility adds to MediaTek’s presence in Bengaluru – since 2014 the company has had a facility in Bellandur – and is a step to fulfil MediaTek’s overall commitment to strengthen its presence in India and the Asia-Pacific region. MediaTek recently also opened an office in Mumbai.

The company has recently opened a facility at Mumbai to cater to the ever-growing demands of the market. It will also enhance the fabless semiconductor company’s role in Smart City, Startup India and Digital India projects.

Ingram Micro partners with TeamViewer as its distributor Ingram Micro

India has entered into partnership with TeamViewer. In this partnership, Ingram Micro India will officially resell TeamViewer as part of its Enterprise offering to its customers in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Maldives.

“We are delighted to partner with Ingram Micro as our first signed distributor in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Maldives. Together we will provide solutions that really help people and organizations improve how they live and work. TeamViewer does that with a secure and reliable service that has been installed on over 1.4 billion devices.

Siemens partners with Karnataka Government to establish 4 COEsSiemens Industry

Software India has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Government Tool Room and Training Center (Government of Karnataka) and DesignTech Systems to establish four Centers of Excellence across Karnataka. The partnership paves the way for a world-class integrated skill development infrastructure and benchmarked technical education curriculum with core focus on Industry 4.0, Automation, Mechatronics and Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure. The four COEs will address diverse industry segments like Automotive, Industrial machinery, Industrial automation, Renewable Energy and Aerospace and Defense.



HOT BYTES

Canon revolutionizes the industrial printer industry

Hikvision partners with SGS for Joint Lab Collaboration

Microsoft ties up with TSSC

NEC launches COE for Analytics

Atos joins hands with Dell EMC to address the IoT market

Epson unveils two express service centres in NCR region

NEC and NEC Te c h n o l o g i e s

India (NTI) has launched the Center of Excellence for Analytics Platform & Solutions” (COE-APS). The COE-APS will simplify digital transformation and act as a one stop shop for

both customers and partners in the telecom, retail, banking, financial services, insurance, manufacturing

Canon has always been a frontrunner

in the printing industry and has always offered its customers the best-of-breed technology. The company has recently organized a demonstration at its NOIDA facility centre to display its new-generation printers and the unique selling point of these products.

During the visit, five different industrial printers were demonstrated. The model of the printers were

– iPR C8000VP/C10000VP, iPR C850/C750/C650, iRADV 85XX Series, Oce VP 6000 Ultra, DreamLabo 5000. All the printers come with different printing qualities and features. iPR C8000VP/C10000VP, one of the printers displayed, is a big machine for heavy industrial usage that can print cut sheets of excellent texture media printing. It can print up to 100 pages per minute and the duty cycle of this machine is 15 lakh A4 prints in a month.

Hikvision and SGS have signed

an agreement for joint laboratory collaboration. The memorandum will pave the way for joint efforts in testing, inspection, verification and certification of Hikvision products. It will also see the two companies cooperating strategically in various areas, including mutual technology exchange, training, information sharing and platform establishment.

“SGS actively participates in the formulation of global standards and regulations. It has deepened understanding

and insight in these aspects and the global market trend development. Together with Hikvision, we will rely on professional technical team and rich experience to assist Hikvision in product quality improvement, and to improve further their product competitiveness in the security marketplace,” said Laurence Kwan, Director for Electrical and Electronic Business, SGS Asia-Pacific.

Microsoft India has signed an

MoU with the Telecom Sector Skill Council (TSSC) to jointly explore how Project Sangam will help enhance skills of executives in the telecom sector and create a more viable skilling e c o s y s t e m . A n n o u n c e d by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella earlier this year at Future Decoded, Project Sangam is a cloud-hosted platform that leverages Azure services, as well as the power of LinkedIn, to provide an integrated mobile-first platform for skilling, and employment.

Microsoft India will provide TSCC a platform to onboard identified skilling partners, content creators, training candidates and potential employers. Using

the platform, the sector council can create courses c o m p l i a n t with the National Skills Qualification F r a m e w o r k (NSQF). These

courses can then be further extended by their partners and trainers with their own training material. The platform will also provide Advanced Analytics and Insights for monitoring and iteratively improving program success.

and government. The company aims to

achieve revenues of more than $100 million within 3 years of the COE-APS’ establishment. The COE-APS will initially focus on markets that include Japan, India, Singapore,

Philippines and Hong Kong, then gradually expand services throughout APAC and other regions.

Atos and Dell EMC have joined forces

to address the growing Internet of Things (IoT) and business analytics markets. This collaboration is based on best-in-class hardware and software from Dell EMC combined with the Atos Codex to design, build, run and secure smart data business services, data platforms and Internet of Things.

The offering will initially

focus on North America and Europe.

Atos and Dell EMC are working together to build an IoT service management framework to allow customers to be always in control and to be assured that all users can continuously create value from their connected devices. The service management framework will be called Atos Codex IoT Services.

Epson has opened two Express

Service Centres in Noida and Gurugram. The Express Service Centres will focus on enhancing the customer’s experience by offering and completing service within one hour, irrespective of the warranty status.

The Epson Express Service Centres aim to address the growing customer’s demand for an ultra-quick and effective resolution to any product problem and are expected to be especially useful for customers who use

Epson products to run and sustain their businesses. The centres will focus on repairing and servicing entry- and mid-range inkjet printers primarily. Epson has Express Customer Service Centres running very successfully in Indore, Raipur and Rajasthan and is gradually extending the concept to other key cities across the country.

Veeam partners with Microsoft Veeam Software

has announced new capabilities enabling any business to deliver the Digital Life experience users expect by protecting applications and data running in Hybrid Cloud leveraging backup and disaster recovery based on Microsoft Azure and Veeam “Always-On Cloud” Availability Platform.

Veeam announced a Scale out Backup Repository (SOBR) support for cloud object storage. This functionality arrives with Veeam Availability Suite v10. Microsoft will enable all Azure customers to access and use disks in Azure up to 4TB in size . This enhancement means Veeam customers can fully realize a more cost-effective solution using a Veeam virtual appliance to back up four times as much data in Azure Storage.

Tata Communications ties up with Alibaba Cloud Ta t a

Communications has partnered with Alibaba Cloud to enable customers from over 150 countries, including India, to connect to Alibaba Cloud’s ExpressConnect via Tata Communications’ IZO Private Connect service.

“The partnership between Alibaba Cloud and Tata Communications will empower customers to expand to new geographies, boost productivity, safeguard their businesses against threats, and take customer experience to the next level. We will offer more global organizations connectivity to Alibaba Cloud and strengthen our presence in the Chinese market,” said Genius Wong, President, Global Network, Cloud and Data Center Services -Tata Communications.



ON THE RAMP

Huawei and Microsoft to expand Server Product Portfolio

Polycom launches EagleEye Director II Camera

HDS powers the HCP portfolio with major updates

VMware updates its vRealize Cloud Management Platform

Aruba presents advanced OS

Konica Minolta launches AccurioPress C2070/2060

VMware has introduced major

updates across its VMware vRealize cloud management platform to improve software-defined data center (SDDC) and cloud operations and accelerate application and inf ras t r uc ture service delivery across hybrid clouds. New releases include VMware vRealize Operations 6.6, VMware vRealize Automation 7.3, vRealize Business for Cloud 7.3, vRealize Log Insight 4.5 and vRealize Network Insight 3.4. The VMware

Huawei has a n n o u n c e d

plans to expand its server product portfolio to deliver Hybrid Cloud solution for Microsoft Azure Stack: a hybrid cloud powered by Huawei servers and switches. The jointly-engineered solution will enable enterprises and service providers to deploy Azure services on-premises with seamless consistency with Azure, allowing enterprises to accelerate their digital transformation and adopt a hybrid cloud platform with confidence.

"Combining Huawei’s

competitive strength in server hardware with Microsoft’s cloud expertise, the groundbreaking Huawei Hybrid Cloud for Microsoft Azure Stack

is an ideal option for enterprises moving to hybrid cloud,” said Qiu Long, President, IT Server Product Line, Huawei. “The jointly-engineered solution epitomizes the successful and symbiotic relationship between the two companies.”

Polycom has unveiled EagleEye

Director II camera. The camera frames and zooms in on active speakers allowing for more natural conversation and greater interaction among participants, enabling them to see facial expressions and body language more clearly. The EagleEye Director II automatically scans the room during a meeting to identify and focus on active meeting participants. When someone in the virtual meeting starts to speak, the camera seamlessly transitions to an up-close

view of that person. “One of the biggest

challenges facing Indian employers today is closing the technology gap between 20th-century technologies

and the workplace of the future style collaboration solutions that employees are demanding. The best technologies are those that keep pace with where users want to push it,” Minhaj Zia, Vice-President for Polycom in India, SAARC & SEA, explains.

Hitachi Data Systems (HDS)

has introduced major updates to the Hitachi Content Platform (HCP) portfolio, providing a path to digital transformation for enterprises. With this release, HCP gains a 400-per cent increase in usable storage per cluster, 67-per cent more storage node capacity via 10TB drives, a 55-per cent increase in objects per node and simplified software licensing so customers

can achieve over 5x lower storage costs than public cloud, which leads to over 60% TCO savings than public cloud for enterprise use-cases.

The integrated portfolio offers the capability to increase profitability and productivity through cloud economics and by applying analytics to uncover new opportunities and insights. It also can reduce risk by enhancing security, availability and data protection.

vRealize Suite enables customers to manage and provision at scale–compute, network, storage and application services across hybrid cloud environments.

“VMware is committed to supporting our customers’

digital transformation initiatives by helping them to modernize their data centers as well as integrate their public clouds,” said Ajay Singh, Senior VP and GM, Cloud Management Business Unit, VMware.

Aruba has announced a

new enterprise core and aggregation switch and advanced operating system, ArubaOS-CX, designed for modern mobility, cloud, and IoT requirements.

The Aruba 8400 Core Switch Series built for emerging mobile-cloud business applications and changing traffic patterns that are being driven by the massive flood of data sources and growth in IoT. The Aruba 8400 Switch Series address the need for immediate visibility, greater security, better insights into troubleshooting, and easier automation, giving

enterprises true business agility as they move to mobile-first, cloud, and IoT-enabled businesses.

ArubaOS-CX acts as the brains of the switch to automate and simplify many critical and complex network tasks. Key benefits of the new operating system for IT include Automated Visibility for Early Detection, Faster Resolution with Network Insights and Programmability Simplified to Help IT Scale.

Konica Minolta has added two

new presses, AccurioPress C2070/2060 machine which comes as the successor of bizhub PRESS C1070/ C1060 and is an ideal solution to cater to mid-range digital colour printing jobs. The solution has been launched with significant upgrades and refinements as compared to its predecessors and offers complete scalability to meet the growing requirements of printing businesses and enhance productivity.

AccurioPress C2070/ 2060 offers features and technology including a high- speed dual scanning at speeds up to 240 ipm for hard-copy originals; 1200 x 1200 DPI resolution with 8-bit processing. AccurioPress C2070/ C2060 is equipped with the 300 GSM Auto-Duplex and can also print on media upto 350 GSM. AccurioPress C2070/C2060 are also equipped with Open API, offering a coherent compatibility with solutions from other vendors.

Schneider Electric presents StruxureOn Digital Service Schneider Electric

has introduced StruxureOn that connects data center physical infrastructure assets to the Schneider Electric cloud enabling the delivery of simplified and faster services. StruxureOn data-driven analytics can proactively advise of potential failures,.

“Today, as data center managers face tightening budgets, growing customer demands on data center performance, and an increasingly competitive market, optimizing operations while staying within financial confines has become a significant challenge,” said Sudhir Puthran, VP - Services, Greater India Zone, Schneider Electric.

Ruckus announces a range of wired and wireless products Ruckus has

announced that it now offers both wired and wireless networking for enterprise, hospitality, service provider, government and small-and-medium business (SMB) customers worldwide. The company now offers a complete line of high-performance access infrastructure designed to optimize the end-user experience, simplify network setup and management for IT managers. The ICX 7150 Z-Series switch and Ruckus R720 access point (AP) together solve the problems associated with increasing device densities and bandwidth-consuming applications by maximizing network access performance with a complete multi-gigabit 802.11ac Wave 2 solution.



ON THE RAMP

Avaya announces a portfolio of SIP-based devices

Lenovo unveils GST-ready Solutions

AMD launches updated Radeon Pro 500 Series Graphics

Quantum announces StorNext 6 for Advanced Data Management

Western Digital announces SSDs with 3D NAND technology

Apple unveils new version of App Store

AMD has introduced Radeon Pro 500

series graphics, available in the updated 21.5- and 27-inch iMac. Radeon Pro 500 series graphics enable extraordinary computing e x p e r i e n c e s , including stunning gaming, immersive VR on select models, and fluid content creation with exceptional performance and support for GPU acceleration across a range of creative applications on the Mac platform, such as Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Photoshop and the

Quantum has a n n o u n c e d

StorNext 6. It adds new advanced data management

features to the industry-leading streaming performance of the company’s scale-out tiered storage solutions portfolio, which includes flash, disk, tape and public and private cloud storage offerings.

StorNext 6 addresses the needs of enterprises grappling with using their

Avaya has announced that it

is now offering the globally recognized quality and style of its desktop and conference phones to service providers. In collaboration with BroadSoft, Avaya is making a full portfolio of open standards, SIP-based devices available to service providers that are tested for interoperability with the BroadSoft BroadWorks platform.

The Avaya open s t a n d a r d s - S I P - b a s e d desktop and conference phones portfolio provide simple, powerful and affordable endpoints for a broad range of third-

party, hosted call control platforms. The Avaya portfolio includes three models: a conference phone, a desktop handset and the sleek, new Avaya Vantage phone that was just announced last Fall. Additional phones will be added over the next year to support use-case or job functions.

Lenovo has launched a comprehensive

range of GST-ready solutions across its notebook, desktop, and all-in-one PC powered by Intel Core processors, and the tablet portfolio. The PCs start at an accessible price of Rs.19,999/- (plus tax).

With this launch, Lenovo aims to enable small businesses and entrepreneurs with a choice of attractive offers from GST-compliant accounting, ERP and POS solutions

along with the purchase of select Lenovo PCs. Lenovo has collaborated with Intel and three solution

providers: IDOS, Marg and WeP Digital. Businesses that are currently evaluating the need to purchase computing devices can review all offerings available and select what is best suited to their needs.

Foundry Nuke, Mari and Modo.

Radeon Pro 500 series graphics harness up to 5.5 TFLOPS of performance, unleashing the creativity

of artists, designers, photographers, filmmakers, visualizers and engineers, and aspiring creative types across high-resolution canvases in the most popular creative applications.

existing NAS solutions to store large, rapidly-growing data sets and drive business value from that data. It also

provides more efficient and cost-effective ways to share and access files across geographically distributed teams, to manage and protect archived data, and to audit changes to data throughout its lifecycle.

StorNext 6 will begin shipping the products in early summer.

Western Digital Corporation has

announced the world’s first client solid-state drives built with its 64-layer 3D NAND technology that enables the company to deliver new, innovative SSDs with lower-power consumption and higher performance, endurance and capacities.

“Delivering 64-layer 3D NAND-based SSDs into the PC segment marks a critical step in our ongoing conversion to this

Apple has unveiled the all-new App

Store, designed from the ground up to make discovering apps and games easier than ever before. The App Store will be included with iOS 11. iOS 11 and will be available this fall as a free software update for iPhone 5s and later, all iPad Air and iPad Pro models, iPad 5th generation, iPad mini 2 and later and iPod touch 6th generation.

The App Store is packed with original stories and editorial, updated daily in a new Today tab, as well as new Games and Apps tabs. Compelling stories, in-depth interviews, helpful

new technology, as well as offers long-term benefits for our customers,” said MIke Cordano, President and COO, Western Digital. “Between our two, strong brands in SanDisk and WD, and their respective loyal customer bases and distribution channels, these advanced SSDs will appeal to a very broad footprint of the computing population that are seeking the benefits of today’s newest technologies.”

tips will showcase Apple’s unique perspective and aim to inform, help and inspire customers every day.

App Store customers have now downloaded more than 180 billion apps and Apple has paid out over $70 billion to developers since the store launched in 2008, making it the most vibrant software marketplace in the world.

Red Hat launches OpenShift.io Red Hat has

i n t r o d u c e d Red Hat OpenShift.io optimized for creating cloud-native, container-based applications. OpenShift.io enables digital transformation with an end-to-end application development environment, requiring no installation and addressing all development phases.

Red Hat OpenShift.io introduces powerful, real-time stack analysis, which helps development teams to better detect critical vulnerabilities and uncommon usage patterns. This increases developer confidence in their software stack selections and reduces risk while also enabling tooling and stack recommendations based on industry best practices.

NSDL e-Governance now offering ASP services to GSP NS D L

e - G ove r n a n c e Infrastructure (NSDL e-Gov) is offering Application Service Provider services, in addition to being a GST Suvidha Provider (GSP). NSDL e-Gov enabled with state-of-the-art technology infrastructure, is offering these services to help dealers/businesses, chartered accountants and tax consultants for the purpose of GST compliance and filing. NSDL e-Gov ASP services will be available to the enrolled users.

These services will be available in the following two categories – using system-to-system API integration and using NSDL e-Gov ASP’s web-based interface.

“PACKS PLENTY OF OOMPH”

Windows 10 Pro means business.

Forged from carbon fiber ®the ThinkPad X1 Carbon is

incredibly thin and

immensely powerful.

Call us at 1800 3000 9990 or e-mail us at [email protected]

© Lenovo 2017. All rights reserved. Lenovo, the Lenovo logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Lenovo.

Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S. and other countries or both.

- LAPTOP


“PACKS PLENTY OF OOMPH”

Windows 10 Pro means business.

Forged from carbon fiber ®the ThinkPad X1 Carbon is

incredibly thin and

immensely powerful.

Call us at 1800 3000 9990 or e-mail us at [email protected]

© Lenovo 2017. All rights reserved. Lenovo, the Lenovo logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Lenovo.

Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S. and other countries or both.

- LAPTOP


VOICE-N-DATA

Bharti Airtel receives SEBI approvals for Telenor India merger

Linksys India unveils EA7500 Gigabit Router

ADPAY partners with BSNL to launch India’s first MVNO Digisol unveils DG-BA4305 Adapter

IPSTAR deploys JUPITER System to extend the reach of broadband

Ericsson launches dual-band radio products for Indian market

ADPAY has partnered with

BSNL to launch India's first mobile MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) service AEROVOYCE in Tamil Nadu circle in 6-8 weeks time. The launch event was attended by Anupam Srivastava, CMD, BSNL; N.K. Mehta, Director (CFA) and Director (Enterprise), BSNL; Anil Jain, CGM, NCNGN and Head for VNO initiative in BSNL and Sivakumar Kuppusamy, CEO and Founder, ADPAY/AEROVOYCE

AEROVOYCE will

Bharti Airtel has received the

approval of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), BSE Limited and National Stock Exchange of India Limited for the proposed scheme of merger between Airtel and Telenor (India) Communications.

Bharti Airtel further stated that Telenor India and Airtel have filed the joint company application before the New Delhi Bench of the National Company Law Tribunal for approval of the proposed scheme of merger. The merger is inter alia subject to other statutory approvals including from the

Competition Commission of India.

Airtel has entered into a definitive agreement with Telenor South Asia Investments Pte Ltd. As part of the scheme, Airtel will acquire Telenor India’s running operations in seven circles - Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Gujarat, UP (East), UP (West) and Assam.

Linksys India has unveiled the

EA7500 Max-Stream AC1900 MU-MIMO Gigabit Router. The Linksys EA7500 Gigabit Router is specifically designed for enhancing 4K TV streaming, multi-player online gaming and high-speed simultaneous Wi-Fi activities. It features Multi-User MIMO technology, an 800 MHz dual-core processor, combined speeds up to 1.9Gbps, two dedicated Wi-Fi bands and also brings Next-Gen AC Wi-Fi to the home for simultaneous streaming, online gaming, video chatting and more to

multiple screens in multiple rooms. It delivers speeds up to 2x the speed of current routers.

Altaf Ansari, Country Head, Linksys (India and SAARC), says, “Using the latest breakthrough Multi-User MIMO technology, users can power-stream their 4K TV, enjoy multi-player online gaming, surf and transfer data on different devices concurrently, at the same time and same speed without any lag.

use the spectrum from BSNL and will closely work with BSNL for bringing better services for AEROVOYCE’s subscribers. AEROVOYCE is the first licensee of national VNO/MVNO for pan-India.

DIGISOL Systems has unveiled DG-BA4305, high-speed 4G LTE USB adapter, offering download speed up to 150 Mbps. It comes with advanced features like Text M e s s a g i n g (SMS), Mass S t o r a g e , Phone Book, etc.

This adapter has a Micro SD slot and can hold a Micro SD card up to 64 GB for data storage. It is compact in design for speedy and hassle-free installation. There is no additional hardware/

software installation. It supports 4G LTE Band B1, B3, B5, B7, B38, B40, B41; 3G and 2G networks; SMS*, phone book, USSD via Software; USB 3.0 High

speed interface. T h e

D I G I S O L DG-BA4305 is available in the market at an approximate street price of Rs.2,799/- and comes with one-year warranty.

IPSTAR International has chosen the

JUPITER System from Hughes Network Systems LLC, (HUGHES) to extend the reach of broadband throughout India.

IPSTAR will operate the JUPITER System over the THAICOM 4 high-throughput satellite (HTS) in India, enabling government-owned service provider BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd) to offer fixed and mobile services

as part of the government’s “Digital India” initiative.

“IPSTAR has chosen the Hughes JUPITER System as Thaicom’s core networking platform of a comprehensive broadband solution to BSNL,” said Amrit Pal Singh, General Manager, IPSTAR India. “JUPITER’s combination of efficient bandwidth usage and support for new Internet standards like IPv6 give us an unbeatable engine."

Ericsson has launched dual-

band radio products customized for the Indian market . The innovations include Wideband Radio 2242 and Dual Band Radio Dot –provides significant boost to indoor mobile broadband connectivity. It combines two frequency bands (1,800 MHz and 2,100 MHz) in one form factor simplifying deployment that integrates 100% with outdoor networks. These radio solutions from Ericsson are designed to

provide a superior end-customer experience.

According to Nitin Bansal, Head of Network Products, Ericsson India, ”Video and Social media are driving the dramatic increase in data traffic. Ericsson’s latest range of dual band radio solutions have been designed to help Indian operators address the heightened demand by increasing capacity, improving coverage outdoors and indoors while enabling significant opex benefits.”

Mojo Networks updates Cloud Wi-Fi Platform

Mojo Networks has updated its cloud Wi-Fi architecture to meet the demands of large-scale enterprise and university deployments. The new update will allow users to integrate Mojo Cloud with local network security, logging and management systems, and the Multiservice Platform, providing the capability to migrate a Wi-Fi network from controller to cloud without redesigning the underlying architecture.

The Cloud Integration Point simplifies integration with local network management systems, security information and event management systems, Syslog servers and existing WLAN controllers, allowing network administrators to have a unified view of their network.

AXILSPOT launches ASW120 Wireless Access Point

AXILSPOT has unveiled ASW120 Access Point (AP) for hospitality and infrastructures like offices, etc.

ASW120 is offering a cost-effective way to provide high-speed wireless services for every user and every mobile device at every room. It is a dual-radio AP, with data rate up to 867Mbps on the 5GHz radio and 300Mbps on the 2.4GHz radio. It also supports multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO) to provide simultaneous transmission for multiple devices, maximizing wireless throughput and improving efficiency. ASW120 features four Gigabit Ethernet ports and USB port, supports Standard PoE output, VoIP, IPTV, Telephone, Internet access and USB charging.



CHANNEL BUZZ

ASSOCHAM and Videocon embark on GST in a big way

TP-Link organizes a Partner Meet in Mumbai

Schneider Electric conducts “5 City SME Connect” event in Ahmedabad

Cloudera launches its fifth annual Sessions roadshow 2017 in APAC

ASSOCHAM and Videocon have organized a GST

Summit for Traders. The Summit for Traders witnessed deep discussions around GST, addressing retailers’

queries, and offering them a clearer understanding of the GST concept. The seminar was inaugurated by the Chief Guest Shri Arjun Ram Meghwal, Hon’ble Minister of State for Finance, Ministry of Finance. The Seminar was also addressed by Shri R. N. Dhoot, Member of Parliament, and Shri Manish Sharma, President, CEAMA.

Schneider Electric has recently organized an

event “5 City SME Connect” in Ahmedabad. The highlight of the event is to interpret the SME technology challenges and mitigate

those challenges with a systematic approach.

The government has already passed the law that in all government and PSU procurements, 20% will be from the SME organization. They contribute up to 60% of total employment and up to 40% of national income (GDP) in emerging

The ASSOCHAM Videocon GST Summit provided a freewheeling dialogue between experts from Videocon and ASSOCHAM, and Consumer

Electronic retailers on GST. The session imparted knowledge on the fundamentals of GST and educated the retailers on the impact of GST on the consumer durables. With the inaugural event in New Delhi, the ASSOCHAM Videocon summit will go to 200 cities ahead of its nationwide rollout on July 1.

TP-Link has conducted a Partner meet in Mumbai

under the moniker “UNITE”. The main objectives were to help partners gain insight about TP-Link SOHO, SMB, and ISP segment products, address various challenges they face and maximize business opportunities. The Partner meet was attended by 100 attendees who have their wide presence across Mumbai IT Market in SOHO as well as SMB S e g m e n t s . After a brief hiatus the IT industry faced post demonetization, Unite acted as a platform for the brand to show its support towards partner community. With successful implementation of Unite, TP-Link is focussing on establishing a strong partner connection, with help of which it will be shifting market focus to AC Series router.

TP-Link has strategized and planned to provide its dealers with product variations, so that they can easily compete with e-commerce portals by healthy competition.

“We at TP-Link, value our partners to core, thus the inclusion of Royalty VIP programme has seen a positive response in market and strengthen our presence and connections. This additional support to partners along with good overall service support has made TP-Link a preferred brand when partners want to do a stable and sustainable business, we also

make sure to support our partners with Marketing activities,” said Bijoy Alaylo, GM, SOHO Networking, TP-Link India.

“This programme represents one of the top strategic initiatives for TP-Link. At the same time, we are overwhelmed by the interest shown by our partners for this event. This will help us collectively grow our business,” said Sanjay Sehgal, VP, SMB & Telecom Business, TP-Link India.

economies, including India. As per the government report, India has approximately 40 million of SMEs, out of which 200,000 are mid-market customers. And as per the World Bank report, 600 million

jobs will be created by the SMEs in the next 12 years.

However, access to right technology is a challenge for them, especially when there is extreme pressure to perform. They need to be competent with the large enterprises and in the global market as well.

Cloudera has announced its fifth annual Sessions

roadshow, including dates and locations for the complimentary one-day event. The roadshow, aimed at helping organizations

determine an intelligent path toward data platform modernization, has expanded to include more than 20 cities globally. 2017 will also see the launch of the inaugural Cloudera E-Sessions (CES) in the Asia-Pacific region on 23 May, 2017, with the Sessions content made available on-demand in English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean. The virtual sessions will explore topics such as Data Science and Machine Learning.

Both the sessions events and CES will feature real-life examples of organizations and how they are using data to improve business critical decision-making. Alongside,

the CES will provide organizations in the Asia-Pacific region with a platform to discuss the use of big data across industries with Cloudera’s subject-matter experts. Among several subjects, the CES

will discuss the real purpose of data science and how organizations can utilize Cloudera’s solutions, such as Apache Spark MLlib, to better leverage distributed systems and broaden the possibilities of Machine Learning implementations, while lowering costs.

“Cloudera is helping organizations use data to make what is impossible today, possible tomorrow,” said Daniel Ng, Senior Marketing Director, APAC for Cloudera. “The launch of CES in Asia-Pacific will allow us to reach more markets, and provide accessibility and availability to everyone anywhere, anytime.”



VAR CORPORATE

DigiVyapaaris get the GST advantage from Dell

With India implementing the much-awaited Goods & Services Tax, Dell is partnering small businesses in the country and is supporting them in their transition through the GST environment.

As GST, a technology-based taxation system, requires compliance through a digital platform. That is, it becomes imperative for small businesses tobe technologically equipped to transition smoothly into the new system of taxation. Small businesses specifically, need not only a PC, but a technology ecosystem which is GST compliant. The advantage that small businesses have is the flexibility to adopt new technology quickly, as they are nimble and agile.

With its GST-ready PCs Dell is aiming

to empower small businesses with the GST advantage, offering a technology solution and a comprehensive ecosystem to help small businesses become GST-ready. This effort is aimed at transforming business owners into DigiVyapaaris who are able to utilize technology to maximize their business potential.

To begin with, Dell has the Dell Vostro notebooks and laptops, built keeping in mind the needs of small businesses. With attention to detail including anti-glare screens for long hours of usage, optional fingerprint function for security, and comfortable keystrokes for extended computing, Dell Vostro notebooks and desktops aim to ease the load for a small business owner.

Along with this, Dell is introducing packages for businesses so that they can avail a combination of accounting software by Busy® and a Canon Color All-In-One Printer by paying an amount of just INR 2999*. This combination comes at a subsidized price,

and includes the essentials needed by a small business to be able to seamlessly transition to the new system of taxation. The offers ensure that when a small business owner purchases a Dell Vostro PC, they are able to simply plug-in and play, spending little to no time in the process of adapting to a new way of doing business. The software immediately brings them onto an accounting platform for simplified finance, and a printer caters to the basics of business, such as generation of standardized invoices, customer orders, etc.

To ensure that small businesses of every shape, size, and industry is able to adopt technology for the impending transition to GST, Dell plans to educate small business associations

in clusters across key markets, on the role of technology in making businesses GST ready, via digital and on-ground trainings that use interactive content demos.

The annual PC Literacy campaign, which focuses on building awareness around the advantages of PC adoption, will see Dell engaging with small businesses across its Dell Exclusive stores (DES) and will be launching a series of education programs across platforms, which will be implemented in 8 languages to effect wider outreach.

Dell will also be collaborating with key trade associations across engineering, textile, commerce, finance, manufacturing sectors among others to offer hassle-free GST-ready solutions to all the small businesses which work closely with these associations. Apart from this, Dell will engage with key partners such as retailers and CA’s in order to equip them to consult their small business customers, thereby enabling GST-readiness among the entire business ecosystem.

The Dell-GST ready range has been designed keeping in mind the specific needs of small businesses.

GST offers on Dell Vostro notebooks and desktops

Upon purchasing GST ready Dell Vostro notebooks, customers have the choice to avail -

• GST-ready Accounting Package from Busy® and a Canon Color All-In-One Printer by paying an additional INR 2999* or

• 1 Year of additional Dell warranty and a Canon Color All-In-One Printer for INR 2399*.

• On the purchase of Dell Vostro desktops, customers can choose between availing a GST-ready Accounting Package from Busy® and a Canon Color All-In-One Printer by paying an additional INR 2999 or a Luminous UPS and a Canon Color All-in-One Printer for INR 1999

THE DELL-GSTADVANTAGE


FACE TO FACE

Acer helps traders, businesses and partners to transition smoothly to GST

The introduction of Goods and Services Tax (GST) is a remarkable

step undertaken by the government in the reformation of indirect taxation in the country. GST will combine almost all the existing taxes and will simplify the administration of tax system in India and reduce the complications too.

Previously, the traders, manufacturers, and businessmen had to pay several taxes for every activity that took place in the company, right from purchasing raw materials to selling them to the end users. Here, GST comes to the rescue as it permits the companies a smooth and free movement of goods across borders. GST will not only change the way large businesses/companies operate but will also alter the functioning of smaller businesses and traders. It will offer a great opportunity to organizations of all sizes and sectors to transform and enhance their shift into the digital economy. However, during this transition, one of the biggest challenges for the small businesses and traders will be to understand the enormity of GST and adopt real time implementation of it. Therefore, there comes the need of a comprehensive IT solution that would enable smooth implementation of GST and will help businesses in their digital transformation.

To simplify the GST transition for small business and traders, Acer, Tally Solutions and CAIT launched “BIZGURU”, a one-stop plug and play business solution for all accounting and GST compliance needs. BIZGURU is a seamless combination of Acer’s GST customized range of computers and Tally’s, Tally.ERP 9 software. This one stop solution will give businesses peace of mind. By merely switching on the solution, they can get up and running with accounting and GST compliance. This will make BIZGURU a compelling GST solution in the market.

All Acer products for BIZGURU are explicitly designed keeping in mind the prerequisite of Small business owners and traders; the key attributes of these products being sleek and sturdy design, ease of use, easy installation, efficient power utilization, robust service and support even in the remotest corners and accident damage protection. Traders and business owners can choose from a range of Acer

Chandrahas PanigrahiCMO and Business Head

Acer India

computers to help make their business GST compliant. These products start from portable Acer One 2 in 1 laptop which acts as a tablet and a laptop, to Acer Extensa, an Ultra-small form Factor desktop PC which attaches to the back of a monitor to make it a full-fledged desktop PC. Adding to this range is the renowned TravelMate laptop trusted by some of the largest corporate and government organizations in the world known for its power, productivity and security. Completing the portfolio is the Veriton All-In-One PC designed to meet the demanding needs of traders and business offering uncompromising value for money while focused on providing the maximum expandability that business needs as it grows.

Furthermore, Acer has also undertaken a measure to help its channel partners in this transition period. The company is educating partners to get ready for the GST era and has also worked closely with distributors to clear old inventory or make it GST compliant.

As a leader in technology domain Acer has taken all necessary steps to be fully GST ready as well as bring solutions to the market to help traders, business and its channel partners to become GST ready. n

"GST will offer a great opportunity to organizations of all sizes and sectors to

transform and enhance their shift into the digital

economy. However, during this transition,

one of the biggest challenges for the small businesses and traders will be to understand the enormity of GST and adopt real time

implementation of it"


IN FOCUS

Innovation is always at the forefront of Lenovo’s breakthrough products

Lenovo has launched its extensive 2017 Think product line powered by 7th Generation Intel Core i7 Processors. The new 2017 range of ThinkPads, ThinkCentres and TIOs come with significant technology breakthroughs making it an unparalleled portfolio of business machines.

The new models that are launched are -• ThinkPadX1Carbon• ThinkPadX1Yoga• ThinkPadX270• ThinkPadYoga370• ThinkPadL470• ThinkPadT470• ThinkPadT470s• ThinkCentreM710TinyDesktop• ThinkCentreM710Tower&SmallForm

Factor(SFF)• ThinkCentreM910Tower

• ThinkCentre Tiny-In-One 22 & 24(55.8cms&60.96cms)

• ThinkVisionX1• ThinkVisionP27h• ThinkVisionT24i

Building on Lenovo Think’s legendary attributes, the technological upgrades of this new range solves some of the pertinent problems that enterprise PC users face. One of the biggest enterprise asks from a PC is data security, where Think has always been an industry leader. But the changing business dynamics seek a lot more than that from a PC. Today, a PC not only has to be sturdy, but also thinner and lighter, without compromising on screen resolution, sound quality and the visual experience. Most importantly the PC has to deliver superlative performance. With the inclusion of the latest 7th Generation Intel Core i7 Processors, the performance of this latest range of enterprise

machines sets an all new industry benchmark.Lenovo’s latest 2017 range reinforces the

company’s endeavour to consistently innovate and address dynamic requirements of customers. Some of the key technology innovations include: Lenovo Smartbeep Technology for troubleshooting identification; new antenna design with engineered Wi-Fi and WWAN; infrared camera for facial recognition with Windows Hello for secure log-in; Fingerprint reader with Dedicated Chip; Low Temperature Solder (LTS) manufacturing process for improved system reliability and a lower emission footprint; low blue Light technology to prevent eye fatigue; a new wave keyboard for the best Tablet mode experience and protection from smudges; Windows Signature Image for assured speed and performance among others.

All of Lenovo’s Think products will be available across the country through the company’s extensive channel network.


'Lenovo has never kept its eyes off innovation'

"Innovation is the core of 7th generation processors"

Rahul AgarwalMD & CEO, Lenovo India

“In a world of technology that is fast evolving, Lenovo has always tried to keep itself updated with time. This is how we articulate our new strategy, which is the core of our PC business. While the world was wondering what is going to happen to the PC industry, we have gone on record multiple times saying that PC is just evolving and not a category which is dying. At Lenovo, we want to maintain our leadership position with good profitability in the PC segment. We became #1 in 2013 - 14 and for 17 quarters, we have improved our profitability year after year, which is a big deal in this segment. We have not kept our eyes off innovation. Lenovo’s ‘Think range’ has always remained at the forefront of innovation. With the PC Market going through ups and downs, Lenovo has built up a strong backbone. With speculations rife on whether PC users are going to move to tablets or smart-phones, my view is that if people are moving from laptops to tablets and phones, they would also move from phones to PCs, which is something we definitely foresee in this country.

And, this is the reason we expanded into Smartphones and Servers; we bought Motorola and we bought IBM’s server division in a gap of 10 days because we wanted to make the infrastructure ready first. While the hardware market is evolving, what is changing even faster is the way people use products, the way people consume data, the way people store and use applications and the whole convergence of devices. At Lenovo we continue to combine our strengths in devices with new capabilities in cloud and infrastructure to pursue our “Device + Cloud” vision. To make our vision a reality, we have a three wave strategy- to maintain leadership and strong profitability in our core PC and tablet businesses; to build our Mobile and Data Center businesses into new profit engines; to develop new smart devices, powered by the cloud and enriched with services, exploring smart home, smart office, smart healthcare and other areas and leveraging artificial intelligence, AR, VR and other new technologies.

Prakash MallyaMD- Sales & Marketing Group, Intel India Pvt Ltd

“Lenovo is building on the capabilities of innovation that the industry is going to bear witness to. If you look at PC as a category, Intel invented it and we have been adding to it for over 5 decades. The innovation has not waned, and if you really need to know what innovation is, you need to look at how PCs used to look a few years back. Every progression we made, we have made a significant impact. Our continued innovation in the microprocessors to cater to the needs of consumers has made a significant impact on people, on their technology using style and how technologies can actually impact their lives. The 7th generation core processor is the heart of Lenovo’s Think range products. If you compare that with 5 year old machines, it has 70% better productivity and 15 times better performance. Keeping in mind the usage patterns of our customers, a Think user can generally do a lot of things by consuming a lot of content such as, videos, HD content, gaming (which is visual in nature), AR/VR. You have an opportunity to refresh your platforms to the latest range of Think, drive much more and be far more productive. So, what does 7th Generation core along with the Think range offer? There are two parts, one I already talked about - which is the content and content related applications being extremely good and high performing when it comes to the 7th generation core, and the second is Security. So combining security and great content performance gives you a compelling value preposition, especially for the next generation of usage.” Talking exclusively to VARINDIA, Prakash also spoke about how Smart Cities are a huge opportunity for Intel. “As India undergoes rapid digital transformation, the datacenter and the intelligence behind the data collected will enable the government and industry to make effective decisions based on algorithms. Our collaboration with the industry and the academia will help democratize AI, by reducing entry barriers for developers, data scientists and students. In India, we are targeting the BFSI, telecom, and e-commerce sectors, across High Performance Computing (HPC), big data, and Internet of Things, all of which are complementary to AI.”

Rohit MidhaDirector- Commercial Business, Lenovo India

“100 million ‘Think’ products is a phenomenal achievement for Lenovo and we are really proud to be carrying ahead the rich heritage of Lenovo.

With almost 4 out of every 5 commercial laptops in an airport check in queue being ‘Think’, I think we are already eyeing our next milestone outside the 100 million that we have already achieved. They say we are all victims of habit and at Lenovo innovation is a habit. The rich heritage of Think just brings about our ethos of ‘different is better’. In the Lenovo commercial world in India, the commercial business is all about named accounts where we service the customers’ requirement directly.

Last year had been slightly tough for India business due to a number of uncontrollable incidents – the US elections, BREXIT, demonetization, the ambiguity about the GST roll-out. But despite all the hardships, Lenovo’s commercial business continues to be a solid backbone for the Lenovo India operations.

We are definitely aided by Think which has helped us create a class in itself. We have incorporated some of the best features and technologies in the newly launched products - like the low blue light technology, advanced viewing experience with OLED display, the breakthrough low temperature soldering process and so on.”

‘The Think products are creating a

separate class in itself’


FACE TO FACE

No Compromise on Juniper’s ‘Partner First’ Strategy

Juniper Networks is one of the IT vendors, which give a lot of thrust on its channel engagement and partner enablement. HarshavardhanKathaley,Director-PartnerSales,India & SAARC -Juniper Networks shares with VARINDIA the efforts the company istakingtostrengthenitspartnerecosysteminIndia-

In India, Juniper Networks operates through an indirect channel. The company gives a

lot of thrust on the “Partner First” strategy and has an ecosystem of 15 elite partners, 15 select level partners and over 800 registered resellers across India and the SAARC region. It works with distributors like Redington Distribution, Ingram Micro and Transition Systems and some of its elite partners include Wipro, Inspira, Targus, VIS networks, to name a few.

“Juniper’s business is dependent on partners. Our channel strategy is built on three key pillars: the ease of doing business through enhanced partner programs; a focus on next-generation high growth areas such as private, public and Telco cloud, data center transformation, security and software defined networks and ultimately profitability,” said Harshavardhan Kathaley, Director - Partner Sales, India & SAARC - Juniper Networks.

TheEssenceofJPAProgram...Juniper Networks engages with its partners

under the framework of Juniper Partner Advantage (JPA) program, which fairly complements its “Partner First” approach. JPA framework covers all aspects of partnering right

from on-boarding- enablement, engagement-business acceleration, profitability and rewards for partners.

“JPA program is going through various versions and we have recently rolled out JPAP 4.0 and have added few new accreditations as part of it. There is absolutely no compromise on our Partner First strategy”, Kathaley said.

Apart from JPA program, the company has a unique initiative called ‘Juniper Partner Advisory Council Meet’, which provides a platform to its elite partners and distributors worldwide to interact with the top leadership from various functions to review the partner programs and provide feedback for enhancements. This year the company is organizing its JPAC meet in in Bangkok in June.

Kathaley also shared his thoughts on the increasing role of managed service providers (MSPs) in the channel business. He said that the MSSP model is also slowly evolving in the country as there is a great amount of reciprocation from customers and partners for SDN and Software Defined Secured Networks (SDSN) and Juniper Networks is committed to enable its partners on the complete architecture of SDSN.

“The customer expectations and requirements are pushing channel partners to become MSPs, who would take larger role into the whole technology deployment. Many partners along with that have also taken a path of building the networks and the hardware and they are also playing a role in terms of building applications for their customers. Those partners who are able to do it have been very successful in their business”, Kathaley said.

Channel&BusinessStrategyin2017...Talking about the key thrust areas in terms

of business expansion and channel engagement in 2017, Kathaley said that the whole focus would be on how the company would build high performance and scalable networks with a degree of automation. Juniper has ambitious plans of expansion of business and product portfolio in the coming months. “There is absolutely no compromise on the Partner First strategy. We will continue to focus on building partnerships and long-lasting relationships that will ensure growth for both us and our partners,” Kathaley concluded. n

Priyanka [email protected]

SAP partners wth Accenture to Build Digital SolutionsSAP and Accenture has announced

an expanded collaboration to co-innovate, co-develop and jointly go to market with breakthrough digital solutions based on the new SAP Leonardo digital innovation system. The strategic partners will focus on embedding digital technologies including additional machine learning, analytics and the Internet of Things (IoT) at the core of clients’ businesses to deliver even greater value from their SAP investments.

Accenture and SAP are now expanding their current co-development program to include intelligent analytics solutions delivered by Accenture Digital and powered by SAP Leonardo. By combining solutions like Accenture’s Payables Optimizer and Advanced Inventory Management with SAP Leonardo, it is anticipated that clients will be able to reduce capital costs and optimize the supply chain to meet the real-time demands of customers. Accenture will also apply its Industry X.0 approach and Industrial

Internet of Things expertise to help clients leverage SAPLeonardo to enable the digital reinvention of industries.

The Accenture Industrial IoT Innovation Center in Garching, Germany and the Accenture Innovation Hub in Houston will develop analytics and Industry X.0 solutions based on SAP Leonardo. At Accenture Liquid Studios, Accenture will work together with clients to create SAP Leonardo–based solutions at speed, by applying design thinking and agile methodologies.

“Every CEO in the world is focused on

digital innovation,” said Bill McDermott, chief executive officer of SAP. “With SAP HANA and SAP Leonardo, we are alone in delivering the power of in-memory computing together with a rich combination of modern digital technologies. We could not be more pleased to announce an expanded partnership with Accenture to create a new wave of industry-specific digital solutions for our customers.”

"Today, we’re at an incredible tipping point,” said Pierre Nanterme, chairman and CEO, Accenture. “We’re face to face with an era of tremendous business transformation where the fundamental rules of how we create value are being rewritten. What we’re announcing today is a bold step in defining the rules for the intelligent enterprise. Combining our broad industry expertise and leading digital capabilities with SAP, we will unlock new business value for clients in ways we’ve not seen before.”


41 'Gems of Digital India' unearthed and facilitated

The wave of Digital India has taken over the country. It is an initiative to bring

the government more close to the citizens. Many digital initiatives have already been started to take Digital India initiative to the next level.

A research led by Coeus Age Consulting, a first of its kind initiative, unearthed 41 transformative digital governance initiatives which are revolutionary, and playing a significant role in making government more responsive, accountable, transparent etc. The 41 digital governance initiatives are bestowed with the epithet of The Gems of Digital India.

After a meticulous research that extended for 13 months and 30 man months of efforts, the Gems of Digital India were identified through a vivid process of classification, shortlisting, and jury selection, from a repository of 1600 eGovernance projects in India. The panel of jury consisted of eminent names from the government, industry and the academia. The process does not end at identifying the gems, but all the hard work, dedication and the experience have been documented as insightful case studies. These case studies are brought together and compiled in the form of a book written by Dr. Kapil Dev Singh. It is titled as 41 Gems of Digital India – Actionable Insights for the EGovernance Leaders and Nation Builders.

As per the author, Dr. Kapil Dev Singh, CEO, Coeus Age Consulting, ‘The Gems of Digital India were identified through a discovery process, not through a nomination process. That sets our initiative apart from other award functions. There is a lot of rigour that has gone behind the process. The red seal Gems of Digital logo has today emerged as the symbol of excellence and quality.”

The book was launched at the felicitation function of 41 Gems of Digital India. Over 100 government leaders attended it. There was a representation from 50 + departments/ ministries across the centre and 8 states. The event was adorned by Dr. Ajay Kumar, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, as the chief guest. He said, “When I came to know of Coeus Age Consulting’s intentions to discover the Gems of Digital India and celebrate their success by recognizing them and documenting their stories in the form of a book, I was extremely happy. Though recognition through awards is important to acknowledge a good work done, documenting the success is equally important from a learning perspective. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, through its various organizations, is committed to supporting

these digital journeys in every possible way, by providing the required policy, structural, infrastructural and knowledge support.’

When it comes to adoption of technology by the selected Gems of Digital India, the most prominent aspect that has been noticed among them is the hybrid approach. All the initiatives have adopted the latest and state-of-the-art technologies and can easily adopt emerging technologies of future.

While delivering the technology key note, Debanjan Kumar, President and Business Head, Application Services, Sify Technologies Limited said, “Every sphere of life has been impacted by digital today, be it booking airlines ticket or calling a cab or even buying groceries. Sify has emerge into a transformation partner for enterprises and governments in helping them to fulfill their endeavour to go digital. We have successfully handled projects by delivering clearly defined business outcomes to our clients and simply not just IT availability. It requires a distinct set of capabilities to manage end to end of the IT spectrum to ensure services to the consumers or the citizens.” n

CHANNEL BUZZ


Fortinet unveils new business opportunities at its annual SAARC Partner Conference

The Bangkok conference saw Fortinet recognizing partners for outstanding cybersecurity sales and

customer experience and introducing new business opportunities with its Fabric Ready Partner Program

Partner Awards• BestPartnerIndia–EnterpriseBusiness:TataCommunications

Ltd.

• Best Partner India – SMB Business: Secure Network Solutions

IndiaPvt.Ltd.

• Best Partner India – Advanced Technologies: Reigns Infotech

Pvt.Ltd.

• Best Partner Sri Lanka – Enterprise Business: Millennium

Information Technologies

• BestPartnerBangladesh–SMBBusiness:GaziCommunications

Fortinet, the global leader in high-performance cyber security solutions, conducted its annual SAARC partner conference in Bangkok, Thailand and recognized top partners for their outstanding achievements in 2016. The conference discussed in depth the threat landscape and the need to provide customers a collaborative solution that works together to monitor their network, share information, and respond to threats, no matter where and when they occur.

The conference was attended by 150 partners from 4 SAARC countries including India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal. At the event, Fortinet unveiled new business opportunities with its Fabric Ready Partner Program that brings together best-in-class technology alliance allowing partners to deliver pre-integrated, end-to-end security offerings that are ready for deployment.

The Fortinet Security Fabric with an open and cooperative ecosystem of solutions will allow partners to -

• Bundle, sell, and deploy solution sets without the burden of significant costs and resources usually required for validating technology integration when delivering multi-product, multi-vendor solutions to customers.

• Provide customers with solutions that are faster to deploy, coupled with reduced operational expenses and technical support costs.

The conference also had business and technology sessions where Fortinet gave pointers to partners to expand their offerings and maintain their competitive advantages. Fortinet also provided assets and guidance to resellers looking to enter new security markets. At the end of the conference, several partners expressed greater confidence in developing a wide range of security services to offer their customers while increasing their engineering productivity and profitability.

Fortinet also announced the SAARC Partner of the Year awards for 2016, in the areas of Enterprise Business, SMB Business and Advanced Technologies from India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

We have over 1,200 registeredpartners in SAARC and everyone’scontributionhasbeenvaluableinthephenomenalgrowththatFortinethasexperiencedinthelastyear.Iwishtoextend my gratitude to all partnersfortheirdedicationandachievementsin 2016. Fortinet will reinforce itsongoinginvestmentsinR&D,supportandprofessionalservicesandwillworktogetherwithpartnerstoprovidethebestcybersecuritytoourcustomers

RajeshMauryaRegionalVicePresident,SAARC

Fortinet

EVENT


Arvind GautamExecutiveVicePresident,SifyTechnologiesLtd.

“As an ICT service provider, we are focused on transforming our networks to improve operational efficiency, increase flexibility and satisfy customer demand. Security is a core element of our service offering and The Fortinet Security Fabric makes it easier to architect advanced security offerings, shorten sales cycles and deployment times and reduce operational expenses. With Fortinet as a security partner we will be able to overcome the challenges of delivering the required performance as the volume of traffic continues to grow both in quantity and complexity.”

ManojKumarPatelDirector&CEO,AmityInfoSoftPvt.Ltd.

“As a leading solution provider, we integrate technologies from multiple vendors to deploy the best security framework that best fits our customers network. Fortinet Security Fabric with its well-defined, open API approach allows us to integrate other vendor technologies at critical interaction points, including at the hypervisor, the SDN orchestration controller, in the cloud, in the sandbox to detect day-zero threats, at key connection points between network segments and through holistic logging and policy management.”

VivekGuptaPresident,HitachiSystemsMicroclinicPvt.Ltd.

“Hitachi Systems has been helping businesses of all sizes run their business with deep insight. Security being a vital component of enterprise networks, transitioning to a truly integrated Security Fabric based on open standards allows us as a solution provider to maximize clients’ existing investments in security technologies. By pulling all of Fortinet and its Fabric-Ready Partners’ tools together, we can enable game-changing integration, synchronization and automation to help address today’s most complex cyber threats.”

BalwinderSinghManaging Director - Targus TechnologiesPvt.Ltd.

“Our customers have already invested in an infrastructure of networking and security tools and platforms. These products are an essential part of their security strategy and defense capability. Extending the functionality and intelligence of the Fortinet Security Fabric to leading third-party solutions allows us to not only maximize existing security technologies but goes even further by bringing them all together in a cohesive, integrated security platform to solve real-world problems.”

Partner Quotes

“Becauseofitscriticalandcomplexnature,cybersecuritycontinuestobeone of the largest opportunities forourchannelpartners.Integratorswhocanplan,design,deploy,andoptimizesecurityofferingsarefindingagrowingdemand for their skills. By tyingtraditional security appliances andemerging technologies together into anintegratedsecurityfabric,partnerscan help their customers gather andrespond to more actionable intelligence, synchronizethreatresponsesandorchestratesecuritymanagement.”

JoeSarnoVicePresident,InternationalEmerging,

MEA,EasternEurope,India&SAARCFortinet


“We are working closely with large installed base customers on IoT solutions”

Som Satsangi, Vice-President & General Manager, Enterprise Group and Managing Director for Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) in India, is responsible for revenue and profitability. In his 19 years with HPE, Som has served numerous leadership positions and made significant progress strengthening HPE’s sales discipline and improving simplicity, predictability and consistency in the way the company works with its partner community.

Pravin Prashant, Consulting Editor, VARINDIA, spoke exclusively to Som Satsangi on HPE India’s performance, IoT strategy, data center and cloud opportunity and growth of services market in India. Excerpts of the interview:

How has HPE India performed in the enterprise and government sector in FY 2016-17?

HPE is well positioned to grow in India through its capabilities for delivering solutions to address key government initiatives such as Digital India and Smart Cities. In Digital India, HPE’s hybrid IT offerings have enabled the setting up of national data centers and state data centers to implement various e-Governance projects.

Resonating with the vision of creating smart cities, HPE continues to partner with various state governments and healthcare institutions to set up HPE eHealth Centers (eHCs) across the country. HPE smart city solutions focusses on traffic management, waste management, street lighting and surveillance which can be leveraged by state governments in India. HPE Aruba has enabled various state governments to offer public Wi-Fi to the citizens. Overall, we are on a growth trajectory across our business lines. Both our products and services businesses are finding new customers while we continue to grow longstanding relationships and expanding our relevance to those customers in these times of big shifts in the adoption of technology.

Will you please name some of the large and innovative orders bagged by HPE India in FY 2016-17?

In line with our guidance from worldwide, and what we hear from the leading analysts and consultants, technology and digital solutions are disrupting well-established industries and creating new opportunities in others. For example in the manufacturing industry, we are working with one of the top three heavy automobiles manufacturers as they expand and adopt new processes that allow them to use real-time data to make an impact on the services for their end-customers and distribution partners. This company has chosen to modernize its ERP application landscape using our innovative composable infrastructure platform, HPE Synergy.

In the banking vertical, we are working with the two of the top three banks in the country to provide robust platforms for solutions ranging from biometric authentication to securing the network layer with class leading network access control systems, to architecting a complex data management platform allowing the bank to improve its ability to match customer profiles to the best fit of products across the group.

In the communications vertical, we are partnering with Tata Communications to support the rollout of one of the world’s largest LoRAWAN network which becomes the backbone for several businesses to innovate with new disruptive technology like IoT use-cases. Another example is a large PointNext-led project that will assist the Government of India in its ambitious plan to roll out GST network across the country.

How will HPE succeed in the Idea economy and what will be the role of HPE India?

Our portfolio of products and services is now rationalized to ensure we make hybrid IT simple for the data centers of the future, while powering the intelligent edge with innovative products. We are the only technology OEM to have a robust services to bring all these elements together and aligning them to the customers’ business goals. In India, BFSI has been a key focus vertical for HPE. Technology is changing the baseline and the banking sector is at the front end of these changes, leading to new business opportunities for us around data warehousing, analytics and CRM. For instance, a portion of HPE’s business is anchored to consulting and implementation of services around cloud and analytics. HPE Pointnext, our newly-branded technology services organization, works on very complex projects for large banks. In other verticals too, we are seeing a good pull through our value services in the move to hybrid IT, data and analytics for companies in the telecom and e-commerce space.

Som SatsangiVP & GM, Enterprise Group and MD, HPE India

VAR CORPORATE


Has HPE bagged any corporate IoT project in India? We are witnessing the emergence of new use-cases for IoT and they

vary by industry vertical and even by the business priorities within. It is in the early days, and we are working closely with some of our large installed base customers on cutting-edge IoT solutions like connected vehicles, fleet management, workspace modernization and more.

For the IoT ecosystem to function seamlessly, there is a need for a robust networking infrastructure at the backend. HPE has made strides in delivering innovative technology to enable development and delivery of IoT solutions. We are redefining IT at the edge with our next-generation Aruba and computing products for campus, branch and IoT applications. Moreover, we have put together a team to collectively work on IoT and networking, making us uniquely positioned to usher in this new era of IT by delivering innovations for the Idea Economy.

HPE also enables businesses to simplify connectivity across the IoT ecosystem through HPE Universal IoT Platform, which streamlines interoperability and management of heterogeneous IoT devices and applications. In fact, we have recently entered into a strategic partnership with Tata Communications to roll out the country’s largest LoRaWAN network which is an important backbone for IoT adoption and innovation.

Projects bagged by HPE India in FY 2016-17 in the telco space for telco cloud?

Worldwide, we are very strong in the telecom space and we want to replicate the same in India as well. We have done multiple projects for various telecom players in the country. Recently, we executed a project for one of the top three telecom companies where they implemented our storage technology to track customer’s behaviour in terms of response time. In addition to telcos, we are working closely with some of the established and upcoming service providers to help them pursue a cloud business model and provide IT solutions to the large number of businesses in the Tier-2, -3 and -4 centres across the country. With public Wi-Fi zones being created across the country, Wi-Fi offload is another huge opportunity for us.

What about the data center and cloud opportunity HPE seeing in India?

At HPE, we consistently focus on delivering innovation across the data center, servers, storage, networking analytics and security through our extensive R&D capabilities. Some of the data center innovation from HPE includes HPE Converged Systems, which eliminates the inefficiencies and inflexibility of one-silo-at-a-time infrastructure with software-defined agility and automation. HPE Hyper Converged Systems offers all-in-one virtualization solutions integrating compute, software-defined storage and software-defined intelligence. HPE Synergy, the world’s first product for composable infrastructure, offers compute, storage and networking collectively as fluid resource pools that can be activated for any style or size of workload.

How big is the Intelligent Edge and Industrial IoT application market in India?

Mobile and IoT can improve workplace productivity and automate decisions, but only when insights come from via secure connections and trusted devices. Aruba ClearPass automatically identifies endpoint types and attributes of IoT and traditional mobile devices across a multi-vendor wired and wireless access network so that IT can see what is on the network. Today’s networks need to provide more than connectivity – they must deliver insights about network performance and user behaviour allowing IT to predict issues before they occur. Aruba’s network management solutions deliver granular visibility and predictive analytics – locally (Aruba AirWave) or in the cloud (Aruba Central).

IoT innovations allow us to effectively compute insights at the edge. To get real-time insights from your IoT sensors and their data, compute at the edge reduces delays and minimizes bandwidth consumption while transmitting data to the cloud or data center. HPE Edgeline enables edge analytics by converging data center capabilities into an industrialized platform for non-data center environments.

What about the services market in India? HPE Pointnext is a newly-redefined technology services organization

dedicated to helping companies accelerate their digital transformations and

make desired business outcomes a reality. It draws on the expertise of more than 25,000 specialists in 80 countries, covering 30 languages and spanning a range of disciplines from cloud consulting experts to operational services experts.

How is HPE India positioned to leverage SDN and NFV offerings in the data center space?

The Indian data center industry is passing through an interesting phase. The biggest trend in data centers is the demand to virtualize infrastructure and the rush towards the cloud. We are also witnessing a software-defined everything (SDx) scenario where virtualization is not just happening on servers but also with storage, security and networking elements, which is leading to a software-defined data center (SDDC) environment. Additionally, as companies continue to move to cloud, demand for instant access to applications and services with high- quality user experience, puts pressure on legacy network architecture.

HPE’s new compute strategy shifts the focus from discreet silos to a vast pool of processing resources that can be located anywhere, scaled to any workload and available at all times.

What is HPE India's plan for FY 2017-18?Our strategy for FY 2017-18 will continue to be distilled into the

following three core areas of focus: Make hybrid IT simple; Power the intelligent edge; and deliver expertise that customers can believe in.

Make hybrid IT simple: We help customers transition to a next-generation software-defined infrastructure and by delivering an open, workload-optimized software stack.

Power the intelligent edge: Our goal is to be the category creator for converged systems at the edge of the network. We leverage mobile-first disruption to grow in campus segment and capture opportunities from wired/wireless convergence in campus and branch. We see massive opportunity for our expansion to high-growth adjacencies.

Deliver expertise that customers can believe in: We execute mission-critical projects to help transform our customers’ business and IT functions and doing so demands a high degree of trust in our people and solutions. Our customers rely on our expertise to accelerate their mix toward hybrid IT and provide the flexibility for customers to consume IT the way they want it. As we head into a new year, we will continue to expand attach and penetration rates across the portfolio. n

HPE's India Achievement• HPE’s hybrid IT offerings have enabled setting-up

of national data centers and state data centers toimplementvariouse-Governanceprojects

• HPE Aruba has enabled state governments to offerpublicWi-Fitothecitizens

• HPE is working with one of the top three heavyautomobilesmanufacturerstouserealtimedataforendcustomersanddistributionpartnersusingHPESynergy

• HPE is working with two of the top three banks inthe country to provide robust solutions ranging frombiometric authentication, securing network layer, andarchitectingacomplexdatamanagementplatformtomatchcustomerprofilestothebestfitofproducts

• Tata Communications is using HPE to support the rollout of one of the world’s largest LoRAWAN networkwhichbecomesthebackboneforseveralbusinessestoinnovate

• PointNextledprojectwillassistthegovernmentofIndiainitsambitiousplantorolloutGSTnetworkacrossthecountry

• WorkingcloselywithsomeofHPE'slargeinstalledbasecustomersoncuttingedgeIoTsolutionslikeconnectedvehicles, fleet management, workspace modernizationand others

• Oneofthetop3telecomcompaniesimplementedHPE'sstoragetechnologytotrackcustomerbehaviorintermsofresponsetime


COVER STORY

Will GSP-ASP model help corporates in GST adoption?

GST is India's biggest tax reform and is proposed to be a single, unified and

a comprehensive indirect tax levy which will combine all indirect taxes levied on goods as well as services by both the central as well as state government. GST is not just a tax reform but is an opportunity for companies to improve functional efficiencies and realize increased profitability by helping companies to go digital.

Recently, the parliament passed four supplementary bills after their approval from union cabinet and GST council. These bills are: Central GST Bill 2017; The Integrated GST Bill, 2017; Union Territory GST Bill, 2017; and GST (Compensation to States) Bill, 2017. After this the bill needs to be approved by the states and the President. As per the last count, twenty four states have already passed the State GST (SGST) Act while 7 states viz. Meghalaya, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Jammu & Kashmir and West Bengal have yet to pass the State GST (SGST) Act. The Act was passed between April 9 to June 5, 2017.

The GST Network (GSTN) will be the technology backbone of the new GST regime and will act as a uniform interact for the tax payer and provides a common and shared IT infrastructure between the centre and state governments. The platform also provides a settlement mechanism among the states, centre and other stakeholders which includes tax payers, accounting offices, banks and RBI. It is estimated that over 8 million taxpayers will

upload in excess of 3 billion invoices in a month on the GSTN. This is unique to India’s GST network as this level of transaction volume has not been managed in any other tax governance system anywhere in the world.

GSPs (GST Suvidha Provider) and ASPs will provide much needed support to taxpayers in the IT ecosystem for GST filings and other related GST compliances. ASPs will focus on taking taxpayers’ raw data on sales and purchases and converting it into the GST compliant returns. These GST returns, will then be filed on behalf of the filer with GSTN via GSP. ASPs will act as a link between the taxpayers and the GSPs. Companies today are concerned about safety of their data and are keen to know how ASPs and GSPs will ensure data integrity and security while they interact with the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems to extract transaction records.

GSP and ASP PartnershipBodhtree Consulting has signed strategic

partnership with Infosys as an Application Service Provider (ASP) wherein the clients of Infosys will have an option to utilize GSP platform of Bodhtree Consulting for their GST filings. As per Bodhtree, the size of the business would be over Rs. 200 crore in the next three years.

EY, the leading global professional services organization has launched DigiGST, an integrated GSP-ASP solution that provides

organisations end-to-end GST compliance support. DigiGST is hosted on the highly secure Microsoft Azure platform and combines EY’s tax domain expertise, technology capabilities and deep Sector knowledge.

DigiGST is built on a fault tolerant and secure Microsoft Azure cloud platform that has the world’s best standards for cloud privacy. This solution uses intelligent tax automation supported by industry specific algorithms and a reliable and resilient technology platform that is capable of handling a large volume of transaction data.

EY’s GSP will connect with the GSTN system seamlessly over a secured leased-line and upload taxpayer data in JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format using Application Programming Interface (APIs) and the license key accorded by the GSTN. EY ASP will provide all the value-added services to make GST compliance easier. The DigiGST uses robust in-memory multilevel reconciliation for timely error detection and appropriate credit availment to taxpayers thus reducing their working capital blockage.

The DigiGST solution while being customisable, automated and intuitive is also highly resilient, providing the best security infrastructure and complying with the highest accepted industry standards. At each layer of the infrastructure and application, controls have been established to ensure data confidentiality and integrity. While the GSTN mandates all

Indian corporates will definitely benefit from GSP-ASP integration with respect to GST compliances and help in faster adoption


GSPs to be ISO 27001 certified, EY’s ASP solution too complies with the ISO 27001 data security standards.

Reliance Corporate IT Park Limited (RCITPL), a subsidiary of Reliance Industries has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with SAP to launch ‘SARAL GST’ solution for taxpayers in the GST regime. The offering will enable taxpayers to be GST compliant and smoothly access the government’s GST System, once GST is rolled out from July 1, 2017. SARAL GST will leverage the expertise of RCITPL as GST Suvidha Provider (GSP) and SAP as Application Service Provider (ASP).

SARAL GST presents a value proposition for taxpayers focused around simplified operations, unified support and high quality of service, enhanced with scalability and security. As a GSP, RCITPL will connect ASPs to the government’s GST system through Jio MPLS network. SAP, in its role as ASP, will enable taxpayers to effectively create, manage and file GST Returns in a simple, safe and seamless environment. This collaboration of the two industry leaders thus offers the full potential of GST and boosts the success of Digital India initiative.

In light of its own capabilities and further leveraged by Jio’s infrastructure and capabilities, RCITPL has been licensed as ‘GST Suvidha Provider (GSP)’ by the Government to serve the Tax Payers for their GST needs. RCITPL is developing a state-of-the-art GSP service environment and further enrichment is being done by Reliance Jio.

GST Solution for MSMEsThe introduction of Goods and Services

Tax (GST) is a remarkable step in the reform of indirect taxation and offers a great opportunity to organizations of all sizes and sectors to transform and enhance their shift into the digital economy. One of the biggest challenge for the small businesses and traders is to understand the enormity of GST and adopt real time implementation of it. With GST, it has become imperative for small businesses to digitize their transactions and the need of the hour is to provide adequate support to make a seamless transition. PC and laptop companies are joining hands with accounting software players to provide end to end GST solution to help transition MSMEs traders to GST regime.

Lenovo has announced the roll out of a comprehensive range of GST-ready solutions across its notebook, desktop, and all-in-one PC powered by Intel Core processors, and the tablet portfolio.

Lenovo GST advantage PCs start at an accessible price of Rs. 19,999. With this launch, Lenovo aims to enable small businesses and entrepreneurs with a choice of attractive offers from GST-compliant accounting, ERP and PoS solutions along with the purchase of select Lenovo PCs.

To start with, Lenovo has collaborated with Intel and three solution providers: IDOS, Marg and WeP Digital. Businesses that are currently evaluating the need to purchase computing devices can review all offerings available and select what is best suited to their needs. The

Lenovo GST advantage offers also include online training programs specifically created for first-time users. Lenovo is looking to add more partners and also offer easy EMI solutions as part of this GST advantage rollout.

HP India in collaboration with KPMG has launched a comprehensive, secure and affordable invoicing GST solution to help transition millions of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) traders to Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime.

The end-to-end solution comprises of hardware from HP, GST invoicing software by KPMG, cloud storage for storing invoice data, uninterrupted GST Suvidha Provider (GSP) access, e-sign, GST registration and migration services. The solution facilitates the entire process from inputting of purchase invoices, generation of sales invoices, managing the input credit ledger, and generating reverse charges. The solution also helps businesses receive the tax credit through automatic reconciliation of purchase invoices to ensure a seamless transition to the new taxation structure.

Ensuring business continuity to users, HP will also enable specialized help desk support of tax experts on call, email and chat for GST related queries and operational assistance.

In addition to empowering MSMEs, the solution can also support larger organisations enforce a regime wherein their vendors, distributors and dealers are on the GST system, complying with the process and filing their GST returns accurately. The solution can also help indicate loopholes in the ecosystem in the form of a tax credit leak at any nodal point. The solution acts as a unified platform that can ensure ease of invoice generation and reconciliation across vendors and sub-vendors in the ecosystem.

Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), the country’s largest trade body, Acer, one of the largest PC companies in the world and Tally Solutions, India’s leading business software provider has joined hands to launch “BIZGURU”, a one-stop plug and play business solution for all accounting and GST compliance needs. BizGuru comes with Acer’s world-renowned PC products and pre-installed Tally ERP 9 and is supported by CAIT. The solution will cater to all small businesses and traders across India who are currently using manual methods of accounting.

Acer’s GST customized range of computers perfectly complements Tally’s software, Tally ERP 9 which will be pre-installed and give businesses peace of mind that by merely switching on the solution. Tally’s education arm will also provide a certification programme to train the traders on the solution.

Ankit Agarwal, Managing Director, Alankit

Role of GST Suvidha Providers (GSPs): The primary purpose is to provide IT infrastructure and services to central and state

governments, taxpayers and other stakeholders, thereby facilitating the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST). The GST system project is a unique and complex IT initiative. GSPs can facilitate the tax payers in uploading invoices as well as filing of returns and act as a single stop shop for GST related services. GSPs can compile invoice wise data from the business units and upload invoice wise sales register (supply data) in GSTR-1 within 10 days from the end of the month.

Solutions provided: Alankit is envisaged to provide innovative and convenient methods to taxpayers and other stakeholders in interacting with the GST Systems from registration of entity to uploading of invoice details to filing of returns. As a GSP, Alankit with dozens of ASP (application Service Providers) , the IT based companies which have prepare their software for return filling under GST. Yes, we are providing customized applications to our clients which will be integrated with their current system and help them send data to the GST portal in encrypted format. We are also working on Mobile apps.

As part of the implementation package, Alankit plans to introduce a PoS (point of sale) device for smaller businessmen who haven’t yet adopted technology enabled modes of transactions, both for the purpose of Aadhaar enabled payment services and financial book keeping.

Training: We are prepared to fulfill our role as a GST Suvidha Provider and develop seamless interfaces for tax payers to interact with the GST network, we have expanded our existing teams by hiring competent and experienced Tax professionals and IT experts. Alankit GST leads are qualified indirect tax experts who will support customers in the GST compliance.

Target segments: We are targeting all segments like Large, Medium and Small enterprises and Professionals etc. As we have completed 25 years in service sectors, we have 21 regional offices and 4,779 business locations in 673+ cities having 3,300 corporate clients and 20 million customers that’s why have reputed identity in service sector so that we can cover all groups.

Vinod TambiPresident and COO, Excellon Software

Role of GST S u v i d h a P r o v i d e r s (GSPs): GSPs are primarily tasked with providing a secure gateway to the taxpayers to transmit data to

GSTN and back. Additionally, GSPs can provide other compliance related services to the taxpayers including applications for filing, managed services in the space of compliance etc.

Solutions provided: Our company has two offerings in the GST space. First, an end-to-end tax return filing solution called EXACT SUITE and second, secure gateway for transmission of data by taxpayers to GSTN via EXACT PASS.


Results of the tests conducted between GSTN and GSPs: Making ASP/GSP software ready for compliance within the timeline is the biggest challenge right now since the rules are also not yet published and work at GSTN is still going on.

Training: Most of the impacted departments have completed training about the basics of GST system of taxation and general features of our application. We are in the process of educating our clients w.r.t the nuances of GST and usage of the application to achieve timely tax compliance.

Target segments: We are focused on partnering with software product companies, system integrators and large enterprises so as to expand our reach to maximum number of tax payers. Our target is to reach 20% of the tax payers who contribute to 80% of tax.

Veera Venkata Satyanarayana Ganti, GSP Head, Bodhtree Consulting

Role of GST S u v i d h a P r o v i d e r s (GSPs): It is expected that the GSPs shall provide the tax payers with all s e r v i c e s

mentioned in the GSTN system in addition to returns we are maintaining their individual business ledgers (sales ledger and purchase ledger) and other value added services around the same. Another important service expected from GSPs is the automatic reconciliation of purchase made and entered in the purchase register and data downloaded in the form of GSTR-2 from the GST portal. In additional there will be sector-specific or trade specific needs which the GSPs are expected to fulfil.

Solutions Provided: Bodhtree’s GSP solution is built with the best of breed, open source technologies to enable secure, robust and fast communication. The solution provides secure communication, scalability, monitoring of activities, logs as required by law, utility APIs and up-to-date solution.

Results of tests conducted between GSTN and GSPs: Tests are quite successful and based on the test results the GSPs are enhancing the required applications and infrastructure. Training and capacity building pose as a major challenge as GSPs in pan-India implementation of GST in the country from July 1, 2017.

Training: Yes, training and capacity building are two very important aspects for the success of this project. We have started the training process and now it will be on going as this is the backbone of the entire success of the project.

Target segments: 25 big corporatesGSP market in India: So far we have

not come to conclusion of the market size whereas capacity building and required infrastructure (construction of a super

highway) is important for the success of the project hence, capacity building is the biggest challenge.

Swaminathan SFounder and CEO, IRIS Business Services

S o l u t i o n s provided: As a GSP and ASP ( A p p l i c a t i o n Service Provider), IRIS is providing an end to end solution called IRIS GST that will

take care of all the filing needs of taxpayers, right from user management and data upload to return preparation and filing. In phase 1, IRIS GST is a web based solution that incorporates several features to make transactions efficient and convenient for taxpayers, including a dynamic workflow engine, automated reporting and summary dashboards. In phase 2, we are planning to develop a mobile app to facilitate some of these activities.

Results of the tests conducted by GSTN and GSPs: We are happy to report that IRIS GST is the most active in terms of testing our application rigorously. We have topped the list and this is entirely a reflection of our commitment to providing a best of breed solution to filers. These numbers clearly show our product readiness, relentless focus on quality, and the testing efforts being put in by our GST subject-matter experts and software testers.

We see some concerns in implementing GST from July 1 – Apart from the large corporates, there is a general lack of awareness among the small corporates/SME segment on GST, its impact on their business and how to go about GST compliance. This will mean that come July 1, not everyone will be ready to hit the ground running.

GST’s two-way matching process means that it’s not enough only for the large corporates to be GST-ready, their entire supply chain, in some cases comprising of smaller vendors/suppliers, needs to fall in line as well. The other challenge for us specifically as a GSP is the dependence on GSTN APIs – for example, the recent changes in return formats means that new APIs will need to be released by GSTN. This increases the time for our own product to be fully ready and tested. Other ASPs and GSPs might be facing similar challenges which will in turn result in a larger delay in taking our products to taxpayers.

Training: We have over a 50 member team in IRIS who have been trained on GST. We also have a team of partners including Chartered Accountants and Indirect Tax experts on the domain side. Together we have trained several corporates on GST in face to face meetings as well as online sessions.

Target segments: We are targeting the corporate segment, primarily medium to large corporates.

Arjun Mittal, Director & Co-Founder, SISL Group

Role of GST S u v i d h a Providers (GSPs): GSPs have the responsibility of acting as a catalyst for filing GST. We will be providing pass through APIs

for existing accounting softwares, ERPs and companies with a legacy ERP in place. We aim to provide our clients an end-to-end solution as we feel our responsibility goes beyond just the basic.

Solutions Provided: SISL is coming up with a GST application which is mobile compliant as well. We are trying to build in functionalities and features to minimise efforts for our clients to file their GST returns.

Results of tests conducted between GSTN and GSPs: The integration with the GSTN Server is going smooth generally. We are constantly updated about the release, and the setup of the open source portals & google groups has come a long way for GSPs. In a country like India where the scale of this reform is not even comparable to any of its counterparts, the major challenge will be to get the masses accustomed to technology. And SISL is putting in efforts in this regard for GST awareness and compliance.

Training: We have trained around 50 people within our organisation who have thorough knowledge about GST and who are travelling across different cities across India to conduct training sessions and seminars. We have also tied up with various institutes to provide GST trainings for budding GST experts. Apart from this, we are negotiating with several ASPs and are training them as well. Through these initiatives we aim to create a vast network of professionals and students who will be GST-ready come July 1.

Target segments: We are focusing on ERPs, accounting software’s, taxation software and firms looking to migrate from their legacy ERPs for GST compliance. We feel that most of the taxpayers are dependent on them, and by making them GST ready, we are choosing a smarter way.

Tejas GoenkaExecutive Director, Tally Solutions

Ground Reality: There are 34 qualified GSPs and 160 new applicants in round 2 to serve the market of 80 lakh business. Out of the 80 lakh, most of them use

Tally whereas 10-20 lakh do not have any software. In GSP side, we do not see any competition but the competition would be on ASP side as the focus would be on applications and not on GSP. There are 11 lakh paid users of Tally and around 50 lakh of unpaid users of Tally.

COVER STORY


Business opportunity: The business opportunity is 10x in a timeframe varying from 1-3 years and it depends on how the government forces GST on traders as in India it is always wait and watch approach. What happens in July-September quarter will open up opportunity for the future and the question is how fast will the market grow.

Training: The basic principle is to educate Tally users and we are doing this exercise from November, 2016 onwards through our sales network, certified partners and associate partners who have played a key role so that they can provide digital experience end to end. Around 10,000 people are trained every week and we have trained around 6 lakh people since November. Around 6-8 lakh people have come through digital app and blog. We have a 350-400 seat call centre in Bangalore which offers 8 languages support

Mobile version of ERP 9: The company is planning to launch the mobile version by 2018 as presently we have a trial version.

Tally ERP 9 Version 6: This version is GST Ready and helps in providing the fastest and simplest GST setup for the company and it suppliers. It helps in GST compliant entry and printing and all data is GST compliant and helps in filing tax by providing data in the right format. For existing user, there is no change in Release 6 as there is no learning curve.

GST Challenges: There are concerns with respect to GST as change is for the better but the foundation needs to be correct. GST Council should look at input tax credit to tax payment of trader suppliers. E-way bill transportation accounts bill not closed as the transaction rules are still pending.

Sanjay PhadkeBusiness Head - GST Services, Vayana Network

Role of GST Suvidha Providers (GSPs): GSTN envisages a very important role of GSPs in making GST rollout easy and convenient for tax payers. GSTN

believes in creating an ecosystem of GST Suvidha Provider (GSP) providing innovative solutions (Portal, Mobile App, Enriched API) either themselves or through its third party partners for making tax filing more easy and convenient to tax payers.

Solutions provided: Vayana Network stands for end to end GST Compliance. Services offered by us provide enterprises with the ability to proactively comply with GST regulations as well as ensure that their working capital is not impaired. Vayana Network ASP solutions and services can work of the GST processed input files to make them GST ready and help transit to and from GSTN. Apart from the usual tasks like tax preparation and return filing, our esteemed ASP partners provide add-on services including tax determination, validation, 500+ ERP connectors which

integrates large number of billing systems and platforms like SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, etc., private cloud instances, on premise ASP solutions, simple functionality using excel files, transition services and many more.

Vayana Network Invoice Reconciliation solution is an extremely simple collaborative and shared trade transaction tool which enables enterprises to confirm Input Tax Credit (ITC) and reduce Provisional Tax Credit (PTC). It reduces workload and errors in the GSTR filing time window by identifying issues throughout the month and ensures even the smallest of trade counterparties to be able to maintain and confirm invoice records.

Challenges: The key challenges that we can foresee as a GSP in pan-India implementation of GST in the country are: Migration Challenges; Inability to comprehend pricing; and Technical readiness. Migration challenges to GST include: For service tax assesses, migration to GST will pose as a huge challenge; Multiple registrations is perceived as a pain factor for service sector companies (BFSI, Telecom, Media, etc.) having national footprint; Many are not aware about workflow and the timeline they have to adhere to. The awareness around rules and compliance process has still not reached grassroots; Supply chain for most of the corporates are not yet ready for GST adoption, especially SME suppliers and dealers; Majority of tax paying businesses are not geared up to the invoice reconciliation and input tax credit issues that they would be exposed to once GST rolls out; and there would be a lot of pressure on the chartered accountant community to manage their clients’ processes in a timely manner. They have to beef up their team by hiring more resources to manage large volumes of filing processes in limited time.

Industry is not used to the pricing paradigm that is expected in GST ecosystem. Here businesses have to pay a service provider an amount which linked to the volume of transactions, either number of invoices for ASP or API calls for GSP, which is a new concept. Tax payers believe that this is going to significantly increase their compliance cost.

In technical readiness entire GST compliance process will be technology driven. However, industry at large is under prepared for the migration; GSTN, GSP and ASP ecosystem readiness with ISO audit certification, MPLS setup, application development, evolving APIs, lack of standardised technical documentation for developers poses a problem to provide complete solutions; and tax payers are forced to select their solutions based on some informed judgements. Selection of ASP and GSP is still under way for over 80-90% of the corporates.

Training: With the entire GST compliance process to be technology driven and industry at large being under prepared for the migration, our GST team has been extensively trained to ensure right knowledge and awareness is being imparted to the businesses regarding GSP services. For ASP services, our partners have competent teams to train the corporates with respect to GST so that there is smooth transition from July 1, 2017.

Target segments: We cater to the entire spectrum multinational, large, medium or small

enterprises, application solutions providers, tax consultants or tax preparatory service providers since we understand their individual needs and can provide a solution which would be suitable for their business.

Sanjeev Arora, Chief Executive – Digital Services, WeP Solutions

Role of GST Suvidha Providers (GSPs): GST Suvidha Provider will enable the taxpayers to connect to GSTN systems for uploading invoices,

GST return filing for outward register, inward register and monthly returns. GSP gateway will also be an interface between multiple Application Service Providers (ASPs) and GSTN. A GSP is required to create a robust, seamless, secure, scalable infrastructure for tax payers and ASPs to connect to GSTN.

Solutions provided: WeP has developed multiple solutions to provide GST services in India. WeP has built a robust GSP infrastructure which will be an interface which between multiple Application Service Providers (ASPs) and GSTN. This GSP gateway is highly secure and scalable where ASPs can connect and offer seamless services to its customers. WeP has also built its own ASP platform for large, medium and small enterprises. This ASP platform provides many value added services to taxpayers in terms of dashboards, work flow solutions, reconciliations, input tax calculations, alerts & notifications, e-sign etc. for filing returns. These solutions will enable enterprises to seamlessly file their returns and be compliant on time.

In addition to this, WeP has a strong presence in servicing unorganized sector through its own designed billing solutions/POS devices. WeP has now developed India’s first and the only “GST Ready Device” which will enable small retailers/traders/outlets to do manage their business in terms of bill generation, purchases & inventory management, cash management as well as help them file GST returns seamlessly and make their life easier. These GST ready devices are wi-fi connected to ASP platform and uploads invoices and prepare GST formats automatically. This will be a huge benefit to unorganized sector which is struggling to understand GST and how to comply with this new tax regime.

Training: GST is not only seen as a tax reform but as a business transformation. The new tax regime will throw many opportunities for businesses to create new processes to improve efficiency and productivity. WeP has been conducting many seminars at regional levels to spread awareness of GST across the country and connecting with the tax payers to explain the compliance solutions.

Target segments: WeP has a multipronged strategy to address GST market in India. It has developed solutions for ASPs, Large and Medium enterprises and Micro enterprises through it’s GST ready devices. n

Pravin Prashant [email protected]


15th INFOTECH FORUM 2017 – Making a Digital-ready Future possible

The VARINDIA INFOTECH FORUM entered its 15th year by bringing together the who’s who of the ICT industry, IT consultants and senior government officials and PSUs and setting up a platform for a day-long event consisting of power-packed sessions of technical presentations, panel discussions and discourses on issues impacting the technology landscape and, most importantly, business networking. The theme of the 15th INFOTECH FORUM was – “Digitization and Role of IoT for Next-Generation Enterprise”.

Shri P. P. Choudhury, Minister of State of Law, Justice and Electronics & IT, Government of India, graced the occasion as Chief Guest. The presence of other high-profile guests from the Government and ICT Industry includes Shri Anil Swarup, Secretary, Department of School Education & Literacy, Government of India; Shri S. N. Tripathy, IAS, Additional Secretary & Development Commissioner, MSME, Government of India; Shri Rajesh Aggarwal, IAS, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Government of India; Shri M Akhaya, CVO, Department of Telecom- Government of India; Shri B. K. Murthy, Senior Director (Scientist-G), Department of Electronics & IT, Government of India; Mr Raman Roy, Chairman-NASSCOM and CMD- Quatrro; Mr Vishal Dhupar, Managing Director, South Asia, NVIDIA; Shri Rajesh Kumar, Sr General Manager (NB), BSNL; Shri Prashant Gupta,

Partner, Risk Advisory, BDO; Dr. Avik Sarkar, Head of Data Architect Cell, Niti Aayog; Mr Pavan Duggal, Advocate, Supreme Court of India (Cyber law Expert); Mr Yog Raj, General Manager, MTP- Railtel Corporation of India; Dr Alok Bharadwaj, Founder & MD, CreoVate Transformations & Consulting; Mr Srikanth Doranadula, Sr Director, Alliances & Channel, Oracle; Mr Sandeep Sehgal, Director and Head Government and Defence, VMware India; Mr Subroto Panda, CIO, Anand and Anand; and Mr Damodar Sahu, Partner & Industry Advisor, WIPRO, raised the scale and grandeur of the event to a new high.

Mr Deepak Sahu, Chief Editor, Kalinga Digital Media, started off the session by throwing some light on the recent ransomware attack that has hit the developing and the developed economies really hard and how India been able to shield itself better than several other countries. “Industry experts peg the number of infected computers at more than 50,000 desktops and laptops running on the Windows operating system across industries, including banking, retail and manufacturing. It is also true that most of the people are ill-equipped to deal with ransomware,” he said. He also commended the job done by the GST Council by having reduced the impact of GST on the common man and maintaining the status quo on GST rates on the items largely consumed by the upper middle class.

Shri P. P. Choudhury, Minister of State of Law, Justice and Electronics & IT, Government of India, set the stage open with his keynote address, followed by Dr B. K. Murthy, Senior Director (Scientist-G), Department of Electronics & IT, GoI, who spoke at length on digitization. Thereafter, Shri Anil Swarup, Secretary, Department of School Education & Literacy, GoI, shared his perspective on Digital India and its scope in e-governance.

There were also many deliberations and presentations lined up where the top technocrats and subject-matter experts participated to discuss technology and its impact on today’s business at length. Mr Prashant Gupta, Partner Risk Advisory - BDO in his presentation shared his vision towards the adoption of IoT in the country. Mr Raman Roy, CMD, Quatrro and Chairman, NASSCOM, who is deeply involved in shaping the future of the BPO industry in India, also gave a detailed study about the industry.

Mr Pavan Duggal, Advocate, Supreme Court of India (Cyber Law Expert), enlightened the audience on the present cybersecurity situation in the country. Mr Vishal Dhupar, Managing Director, South Asia, NVIDIA, on his part addressed the audience on Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning and how digitization could take the country to the next level. Mr Rajesh Kumar, Sr General Manager (NB), BSNL, being the champion in the conceptualization of getting

(FromLtoR):ShriPrashantGupta,Partner,RiskAdvisory,BDO;MrSrikanthDoranadula,SrDirector,Alliances&Channel,Oracle;DrAlokBharadwaj,Founder&MD,CreoVateTransformations&Consulting;ShriB.K.Murthy,SeniorDirector(Scientist-G),DepartmentofElectronics&IT,GovernmentofIndia;MrVishalDhupar,ManagingDirector,SouthAsia,NVIDIA;ShriP.P.Choudhury,MinisterofStateofLaw,JusticeandElectronics&IT,GovernmentofIndia;MrDeepakKrSahu,ChiefEditor-KDMPL;MrDamodarSahu,Partner&IndustryAdvisor,WIPRO;ShriRajeshKumar,SrGeneralManager(NB),BSNLandMsSMohiniRatna,Editor-VARINDIA

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new business opportunities in BSNL, shared his perspective with everyone.

Dr Alok Bharadwaj, Founder & MD, CreoVate Transformations & Consulting, spoke on the entrepreneurship challenges in the country, while Mr G. B. Shaikh, Vice-President – Security, CtrlS Datacenters Ltd, spoke on the impact of cyber terrorism on IoT-enabled infrastructure.

In the partner presentation, Mr Vishweshara Shankar, Presales Team Lead India and SAARC, Veeam Software, spoke on how Veeam is driving the concept of the “always-on” Enterprise and Mr Kumar Anand, Sr Consultant, INSPIRA Enterprises, gave his presentation on how the company is influencing important decisions with the help of its products and solutions.

The much-awaited part of the event was, however, the launching of the 6th Brand Book Carving a niche of its own, the annual Brand

Book has attracted attention of thousands of technology brands which have used it as a reference book to understand the ecosystem.

But the launch of the Brand Book was not the only attraction of the evening, as the 15th IT Forum also had recognised Top companies in Indian ICT Industry and received the award as the Most-Trusted Company Awards and the Most- Admired Company Awards. While 25 top companies (VAR Top 25) have been chosen in the category of the Most-Trusted Company, a total of 80 companies have been named as the Most-Admired Companies by VARINDIA. The awards were based on the votes cast on the VARINDIA website where respondents voted for their favourite companies.

The website for the Brand Book, www.mybrandbook.co.in, was also relaunched at the event in the presence of the revered Chief Guest.

Mr Sunil Sharma, Vice-President – Sales, Sophos (India & SAARC), became a Motivational Guru for the event and conducted a knowledge session for the guests. He spoke on Decode Your Mind Power Today by citing examples from the Gita and encouraged everyone to realize how powerful the mind is and that anything impossible can be made possible by using the mind power.

The Lucky Draw contests organized by VARINDIA are another sought-after part of its events. To keep the interest of its audience glued to the sessions, VARINDIA conducted several lucky draws sponsored by Seagate when the guests walked away with 1TB hard drives.

There was also a round table session held with the CIO/CTO/CISOs of the Industry where 25 CIOs participated and gave their insights on the current technology landscape in the country.

ShriP.P.ChoudhuryMinisterofStateofLaw,JusticeandElectronics&IT,GovernmentofIndia

“As far as the Digital India mission of the PM of India is concerned, it is based on largely 3 pillars – infrastructure, e-governance & service on demand and digital empowerment. In our country we are in the path of robust infrastructure for achieving the vision of digital India with respect to financial inclusion. We have 110 crores mobile phones and 114 crores Aadhaar numbers of citizens. So far as the connectivity part is concerned, the internet connectivity is around 47 crores. Digital payment is one of the sectors which is increasing day by day. But it needs awareness programs because in rural India where huge infrastructure is required to be laid down. We have today already connected 90,000

Gram Panchayats through optical fibre cables and the remaining is targeted to be completed by December 2018. And once this is over, the next step will be to connect these Gram Panchayats with high-speed broadband connections. Apart from this infrastructure, we will be having common service centres in every Gram Panchayats that will cover 5000 population. We expect these centres to provide digital literacy or awareness programs. If we succeed in doing this, technology for our country will be a game changer.”

S.N.TripathyIAS,AdditionalSecretary&DevelopmentCommissioner,MSME,GovernmentofIndia

“As long as your behaviour is ethical, you need not worry about anything. But if you are working against the law, then any law can take care of it. The Government is a sleeping giant, but when it comes to taking action, it takes very heavily. In today’s world if a nation, an individual or an organization has to be competitive, 2 things are utmost necessary – man and machine. The machine should be efficient, free from any cyber security issues and the man/woman behind managing that machine should be super efficient and competent. In an IoT environment, it is always argued whether a man would control the machine or the machine would control the man. We are entering into an area where nobody knows who

will be doing the bigger crime; you store a message in your computer, there will be an app in your device that will be dispersed to everybody. Ultimately it will be you who will be responsible.”

ShriAnilSwarupSecretary,DepartmentofSchoolEducation&LiteracyGOI

“No matter what technology we have, until and unless we use that technology in the Indian context, it would not work. Technology itself will not solve my problems. Just to drive home a point that private businesses can play a very critical role in tandem with the government to bring about a transformation in which government services are delivered.

I say because they are being delivered, but the quantum and association has to increase. When I was posted as the School Secretary under the government of India, it was the time when all the scams had happened and probably the government thought that this gentleman called Anil Swarup will be able to cleanse the system. But the good point is that the system was so bad, any good thing done in it will become an improvement.”


VishalDhuparMD,SouthAsia–NVIDIA

“If you ask me what enterprises need, in one word it is intelligence. Intelligence will be the only way that they are going to differentiate themselves each day and making progression so that our lives are better. You require machines that learn, rationalize and interact. Each time you use Google for search, it magically finds out what your interests is. When you are watching movies, Netflix knows what your interests are and does recommendations. Similarly your shopping habits on Amazon are captured and every single page is personalized for you. There are cars meandering that are self driven and in the night they return back to the garage. There are robots that are trying to equip themselves with motor skills in different areas.”

RamanRoyChairman-NASSCOMandCMD-Quatrro

“Whoever builds the enterprise of tomorrow by using next generation technologies like AI, IoT will make multi-billion dollars. From January 2015 to June 2016, out of the population of 7.2 billion on this planet, active internet users were 3 billion, active social accounts were 2 billion, mobile users 3.6 billion and active mobile social accounts were 1.6 billion. In 2015 there was a huge penetration but if you take the number of connected devices, by the year 2020 we will have 50 billion connected devices, whether it is your car, refrigerator or air conditioner. I monitor all of them on my smartphone today. Sitting in US, I have some cameras fixed to see what is happening in the periphery of my house merely by clicking one of the apps on my phone, other than the fact that I am connected to the internet or to a 3G/4G network.”

PavanDuggalAdvocate,SupremeCourtofIndia(CyberlawExpert)

“Just after 15 days of the WannaCry attack, a new malware called Adylkuzz has come in the vector which is going to attack our systems remotely. Our systems are said to still work but the malware will capture all the processing power so that it can be used for generating digital currency, Monero. Detected on 21st April, this malware is going to be even bigger than WannaCry. European news says that the malware has already collected a million Euros and it is going to be big. If we see the statistics across the globe, ransomeware has gone massive. Cyber security has come to hit us in a big manner. In India, Aadhaar is potentially the most unsafe thing that you can think of for the fact that India has not put in place adequate cyber security frameworks. It has been successful only in guarding the central data repository but the concern should be about the big Aadhaar eco-system.”

RajeshAggarwalIAS,JointSecretary,MinistryofTribalAffairs,GovernmentofIndia

“Very few people know that while working as IT secretary in Maharashtra, I passed 70 judgements as the adjudicating officer under the Act. Lot of them were about cyber crimes, ATM frauds, cloning of credit/debit cards. This is the famous Sanjay Dhande judgement. On privacy there were only 3 judgements in the country, and I was fortunate to be handling all 3 of them. So what would you call hacking is really very interesting. If your spouse checks your phone and looks at the last dialled number, then that could be called hacking.”

ShriBKMurthySeniorDirector(Scientist-G),DepartmentofElectronics&IT–GoI

“During the last 3 decades, India has made its IT footprint across the globe and contributed immensely in different developing and developed countries. Today if you see across the globe, behind any successful IT application, IT product, there is an Indian behind it. So we can proudly say that I am an Indian. 20-25 years back, when I used to travel outside, the immigration officers were hardly able to spell or pronounce my name. But today they can pronounce it correctly, Krishnamurthy. That is because of the Indian talent that is soon spreading across the globe. But this is also the time we will have to think about ourselves and how this IT can help India grow its economy.”

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DrAlokBharadwajFounder&MD,CreoVateTransformations&Consulting

“You cannot be a business leader without understanding technology to some extent and therefore it is vital that we look at everyone as business leader. The most important leadership agenda is no doubt transformation. It is so important that today the company that you represent, there are 2 things that are common – that every company wants to grow and we all worry for future. We do not know what kind of future environment is going to turn out. We are now in the era of discontinuity where you cannot connect past with the future. And if that be the case, how do you work out the strategy for the company’s transformation? This is the most important discussion everywhere. Also transformation is a continuous agenda and it is almost like changing the shape of the company continuously.”

RajeshKumarSrGeneralManager(NB)–BSNL

“BSNL was corporatized in 2000 and prior to that it was part of the Dept of Telecom. After that we have traversed a journey of 17 years. When we started, we started as an old generation enterprise, but now we are trying to become a next generation enterprise by adopting the latest generation technologies, by associating itself in different areas which are very relevant to the current conditions. We are known as a telecom service provider but we have taken a lot of initiatives to enter into the area of IoT, digitization as well as Smart City initiatives of the Govt. of India. We are also trying to associate ourselves with the common people of the country. We have got a huge infrastructure and our presence is throughout the country. We have started from landline business and today we are virtually offering all types of telecom solutions required by the subscribers and enterprise customers.”

VishwesharaShankarPresalesTeamLeadIndiaandSAARC,VeeamSoftware

“We are a 10 year old company and we provide availability for modern datacenter. We have close to 12, 35,000 customers. 56% of the global 2000 companies and 73% of the Fortune 500 companies use Veeam Availability to protect their virtual modern datacenter. Most of the enterprises today have invested on modern datacenter or hyper-converged environment and we are pretty much strong in this area. Our alliance partners are HPE, Cisco, NetApp and EMC in terms of hardware and storage integration. We basically provide back-up, replication and end-to-end visibility monitoring. We also introduced Veeam Availability Orchestrator which automates your complete DR. You can both have on-premises environment and your DR on the Cloud, which ensures that your environment is up and going every time.”

Kumar AnandSrConsultant-INSPIRAEnterprises

“We are a 9 year old company and have branches, support centres, tech centres and 24x7 service centres pan India. We work with Sis and have tie-ups with OEMs too. We have partnership with more than 20 OEMs for BFSI and system integration projects. Gartner says that many companies still use next generation firewall to control their perimeter security. But if anything happens from inside to outside traffic that commands your control center, you do not have control over that because you are not monitoring that data. Your entire security set-up needs to be integrated so that if anything happens, your perimeter device would be informed and you are able to block the traffic. And continuous monitoring of all layers and by doing a retrospective analysis will enable you to block the perimeter.”

PrashantGuptaPartner,RiskAdvisory–BDO

“Today we are all talking about bringing different devices, means together and working for providing better services to the citizens and across the globe. An interesting thing I have observed in Germany’s e-Healthcare is that there were a bunch of special kids who used to previously come to the hospital for treatment, but now they are all treated at homes with the help of IoT solutions. We are seeing an era where lot of information is getting digitized over a period of time. But digitization is also enabling IoT, which has its own pros and cons. An example is that of patients across US and Europe with pace makers experiencing a massive attack, because some people were trying to exploit the vulnerabilities without thinking that it can have an impact on people’s lives.”


GBShaikhVP-Security,CtrlSDatacentersLimited

“What has happened in the IoT threat landscape is an eye-opener. Anything that is getting connected to the internet has the potential to be hacked, however vigilant you may be. Gartner predicts that by 2020, the 25% IT defined enterprise attacks is actually going to the IoT side of the story. A recent instance that happened at a nuclear power station in Korea, where tight security has been broken and the information taken out also sparks alarm. Even in the 9/11 attack, the terrorist group has extensively studied the infrastructure of US and Europe through leaked information before launching an attack on the trade towers. In India the 26/11 attack was carried with advanced technologies which even our intelligence guys could not have decoded at that point in time. US National security administration has accepted that there have been 19 successful cyber attacks.”

1. Google2. Samsung3. Apple4. Jio5. Microsoft6. Airtel7. TataConsultancyServices8. Infosys9. Wipro10. TechMahindra11. IBM12. HPInc13. Dell

RajeevGupta GroupCIO AironeAviationGroupRajeshRampal CIO AircelKaushalChaudhary CIO LancoSunilSirohi CIO NIITVirendraKumarBansal CIO LuminousRupinderGoel GroupCIO Tata CommunicationsVijaySethi CIO,HeadCSR HeroMotocorpJSSodhi CIO AmityUniversityUmeshMehta CIO - India JubilantLifeSciencesAvinash Mittal CIO UninorVipinKumar GroupCIO EscortsRajeshChopra CIO OberoiGroupSubrotoPanda CIO Anand and AnandAnnie Mathew CIO MotherDairy

The Award being honoured by Shri P. P. Choudhury,Minister of State of Law, Justice and Electronics &IT,GovernmentofIndia&Mr.DeepakKumarSahu,Editor-in-Chief,VARINDIA&GroupPublications

TOP25ICTBRANDSININDIA(MOSTTRUSTEDCOMPANY)

SIGNIFICANTCONTRIBUTIONTOIT&DIGITALGROWTH-CIOAWARDS2017

DISTINGUISHEDDELEGATESDURINGTHEEVENT

14. HewlettPackardEnterprise15. Capgemini16. Oracle17. Intel18. SAP19. Cisco20. Lenovo21. LG22. APCbySchneiderElectric23. Canon24. Adobe25. Acer

EVENT


Panel Discussion- Digitisation and role of IOT for the next generation enterprise

(FromLtoR):PravinPrashant,ConsultingEditor-VARINDIA;VirenderKumarBansal,GroupCIO-SARGroup;DamodarSahu,Partner&IndustryAdvisor,WIPRO;B.K.Murthy,SeniorDirector (Scientist-G),DepartmentofElectronics&IT,GovernmentofIndia;AnujAggarwal,Founder,ComputerSocietyofIndia,NoidaChapter;SandeepSehgal,DirectorandHeadGovernmentandDefence,VMwareIndia;SubrotoPanda,CIO,AnandandAnand;DeepakMaheshwari,HeadofGovt.Affairs-SymantecCorporation;GBShaikh,VP-Security-CtrlSDatacentersLimitedandPrashantGupta,PartnerRiskAdvisory-BDO

A panel discussion modelled around “Digitization and Role of IoT for Next-Generation Enterprise” was moderated by Mr Pravin Prashant, Consulting Editor, VARINDIA. While discussing digital transformation, Subroto Panda, CIO, Anand and Anand said, “Where I work is a law firm, which has the maximum volume of physical files. Now we have come to a stage where everything is required by the lawyers in their mobile devices. Making all those physical files into a digital format and then churning out the required information, a lawyer cannot read all those files even if it’s in a soft form. He needs to have the correct information which is related to the matter while standing inside the court room. We have made our own Ana bot system which picks up relevant cases and throws it up in a device. We are doing more with respect to AI, case matter management system and thus have written a lot of algorithms.”

Virender Kumar Bansal, Group CIO- SAR Group said, “We are a manufacturing company and in manufacturing IT budget has always been a challenge. We have to work with a very low budget always and especially when I see the necessity of getting everything digitised, it is very less. But if we see real digitisation like mobility, we are working very extensively on mobility but deploying in the field is always a challenge."

Deepak Maheshwari, Head of Govt. Affairs - Symantec Corporation cited the example of the healthcare sector where typically WHO tells everyone to take care of three basic things - the pre and post natal vaccination, basic hygiene and basic nutrition. “So even if something happens, you will have faster and better chances of recovery. Similar is the case in our security system. A study done by our members 2 years back revealed that the impact of 9 out of 10 attacks can be mitigated by following some basics - keeping your software updated, keeping backups, using strong but different passwords for different services, using solutions like data loss prevention and encryption,” he said.

Prashant Gupta, Partner Risk Advisory-BDO opined, “Probably many people who are working with global organisations might be trying to tackle with how they categorise their organisation policy, how they restructure their overall IT infrastructure and whether they can outsource to India or to any other part of the world the critical activities they are doing. They also have to keep in mind that the arbitrage was not only because they are providing security but because they are efficiently trying to do the things.”

G B Shaikh, VP-Security- CtrlS Datacenters stated that on the GDPR (General data protection regulation) front, one new thing that is coming will get the customers some kind of relief. “Earlier if you look at any bank where you submit your data, there would be general KYC norms wherein they say we use this and you just need to tick it against the options and then you are given a blanket approval for the PII (personal identifiable information). Now in GDPR what is going to change is that for every citizen PII handled you have to consult in such a way that you are not legally caught for misuse of that information.”

Sandeep Sehgal, Director and Head Government and Defence, VMware India was of the view that the whole networking system consisting of firewall, VPN has not changed in the last 30 years. “The networking component has not changed. You go and meet any CIO or any architect, he will design the same standard architecture. Now when you talk about all these malwares and ransomwares, there is a way they attack. Lot of east west traffic happens and we only worry about the north south."

Damodar Sahu, Partner & Industry advisor- WIPRO quoted a Cisco survey that says that 80 per cent out of 100 customers are still at POC concept or pilot mode and only 20 per cent have got the real benefit and have gone ahead with a full fledged implementation of IOT. “So why is the 20% not able to move ahead beyond the proof of context? The reason is the IT budget. If you talk about the digitisation and IOT, it is going to impact not only that particular enterprise but even the other ecosystem or enterprises around that ecosystem.”

Anuj Aggarwal, Founder, Computer Society of India, Noida Chapter said, “When we, especially in India talk about cyber security and cyber security budgets, ICT and different industries talk about buying gadgets. You spend 5, 50 or 500 crores on cyber security, both for the law enforcement as well as for buying hardware and software. Believe me across the world if you check the major incidents of cyber breaches, it is not because of any system failing, but it is because of the failure of the work of the people."

B K Murthy, Senior Director (Scientist-G), Department of Electronics & IT, GoI said that since it is a connected world, no matter how secured you are, if the person next to you is not secured and you are connected to him, he will become a gateway to enter into your computer. “Whatever the tools you are having, whatever training you are undergoing, how secured your infrastructure is and your computer system, you need to see that other’s environment too are equally secured.”


TheunveilingoftheBrandBookatthe15thVARINDIAInfotechForumtookplaceintheaugustpresenceoftheChiefGuest,ShriP.P.Choudhury,MinisterofStateofLaw,JusticeandElectronics&IT,GovernmentofIndiaandothereminenetguestslikeShriB.K.Murthy,SeniorDirector(Scientist-G),DepartmentofElectronics&IT,GovernmentofIndia;VishalDhupar,ManagingDirector,SouthAsia,NVIDIA;ShriRajeshKumar,SrGeneralManager(NB),BSNLandSrikanthDoranadula,SrDirector,Alliances&Channel,Oracle.

TheBrandBook2017recognizesthosewhoarebuildingandleadingsuccessfulbrandsandgrowingastheMostAdmiredBrandsinIndia’sICTindustry.ItspeaksvolumeabouttheICTcompanies,theThinkTanksofIndia,thecurrentIndianMarketScape,theIconsofIndia,Start-upcompanies,MadeinIndiaBrandsandmanymore.TheBookencapsulatesanarrayofusefulandinterestinginformationareaderwouldrequireonaregularbasis.Ithasbeendesignedwithauniquenavigationsystemthatallowsyoutosearchbycompanynameandproductcategory.

SupportedByCIOROUNDTABLEBYVEEAM

EVENT


India to be a $1 trillion digital economy in 4 years: Ravi Shankar Prasad

The Minister further said that creating a technology with Indian model is important to handle the cyber security threat in the country

A high level meeting was organised in the national capital to understand on how

to achieve a US $1 trillion digital economy within four years by creating affordable technology and an inclusive environment. Besides the Union Minister of Law and Justice of India, Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad and Union Minister of State, Ministry of Law and Justice, Shri P P Choudhary, the meeting on building India's digital economy saw the presence of Indian technology giants and leaders.

There were industry experts like R Chandrashekhar President – Nasscom; Rajan Anandan, VP & Managing Director - Google India; Rishad Premji, Chief Strategy Officer – Wipro; C P Gurnani, MD and CEO- Tech Mahindra; A P Hota, Managing Director & CEO of National Payments Corporation of India; Rajendra S Pawar, Chairman & Co-Founder - NIIT Group, Subho Ray, President - Internet and Mobile Association of India and Kavin Bharti Mittal, CEO - Hike Messenger, among others, present at the event.

The minister spoke on how the government is committed for deform and perform, by using digital delivery and services like the AADHAR and 2.5 lakh Common Services Centres (CSC) spread across the country. Nearly Rs 1200 crore income has been generated by CSCs. “With this we can definitely achieve the said target, where there is a multi-billion dollar opportunity that exists in areas like IT and IT enabled services, e-commerce, electronics manufacturing, digital payments and cyber security."

While giving a brief of the progress that has been made in the Digital India initiative from the period of May 2014 to June 2017, the Minister said that India became the second largest market for smartphones in the world, with smartphone users rising to 40 crores, mobile phone users to 108 crores and Internet users to 50 crores in 2017. India has also emerged as the 3rd largest start-up eco-system with IT/Technology start-ups dominating the start-up scenario in the country. Nearly 400 new start-

ups are coming up every year. The e-commerce market has also seen nearly 100% growth with the figure showing 2.11 Lakh Crore customers shopping online in December 2016. The growth in e-governance transactions has also gone up, with the latest figure from April pointing to 3.5 crore. The growth in Digital Payments has been drastic after demonetization, with Mobile wallet, UPI-based payment, Debit Card, IMPS and Aadhaar enabled Payment System being the top digital payment modes.

He further said that in the last 3 years, six lakhs employment have been generated in the country. The Indian IT sector has crossed Rs 10 lakh crore in revenue and exports have crossed Rs 7.5 lakh crore.

"I don't have any doubt that India will become a US $1 trillion economy in 7 years. My humble request is why to wait for 7 years. Can we do it in 3-4 years?" the Minister said in his keynote address, while still adding that the country needs to develop its own model for digital development that is inclusive. "Create a technology which is affordable, create infrastructure which is developmental, create an environment which is inclusive. Companies can also make India a hub of low-cost technology for cyber security," he said.

Minister PP Chaudhary in his speech said that cyber security is of immense importance and companies should look at storing all data within Indian boundaries in a secured manner.

Indiatoachieve$1TndigitaleconomybyFY2024-25

Sector FY2016-17 FY2024-25

IT/ITeS $160Bn $350Bn

Electronics $100Bn $300Bn

Telecom $80Bn $150Bn

E-Commerce $30Bn $150Bn

Digital Payments $3Bn $50Bn

Cyber Security $18Bn $35Bn

IoT $6Bn $20Bn

Sharing Economy $1Bn $30Bn

Digital Skilling $15Bn $30Bn

Total $413 Bn $1.115Bn

INDUSTRY WATCH


HP introduces GST Solutions with KPMG

With just a couple of days left for the Goods and Services Tax to be rolled out, HP India and KPMG have jointly announced a comprehensive solution for traders as well as micro, small and medium enterprises to transition on to the GST regime. HP will also enable specialized help Desk of tax experts on call, email, and chat for GST related queries and operational assistance including tax filing returns for 24 months. This solution will also come with vulnerability and penetration testing protocols to ensure complete security of users sensitive data. The end-to end solution is available from June 5, 2017 at a price of Rs. 33,990/- or an interest free EMI of 1,650/- for 24 months.

The end-to-end solution includes hardware of HP, GST invoicing software by KPMG, cloud storage for storing invoice data, uninterrupted GST Suvidha Provider (GSP) access, e-sign, GST registration and migration services. The solution facilitates the entire process from inputting of purchase invoices, generation of sales invoices and managing reverse charges. The solution also helps businesses receive the tax credit through automatic reconciliation of purchase invoices to ensure a seamless transition to the new taxation structure.

Commenting on the launch, Sumeer Chandra, MD, HP Inc. India said, “The economy today is on a very strong footing and the upcoming GST transition is going to be a defining moment for the Indian economy. Estimates say, about 6 million tax payers are in India today which made the net taxes and that number is expected to jump by 50% and the majority of the new tax payers on GST will be traders, small businesses and start-ups and these small business will need to now gear up for GST. They have to learn the new ways of doing businesses, automate and digitise their invoicing, i.e., purchases and sales and upload that on the GST portal for reconciliation. This is a new capability that the small and medium businesses will need to pay. So the question is how do these millions of small businesses become GST compliant and get ready for GST.

HP always takes great pride of being a supporter and an enabler in India’s digital journey. If you consider all the historic government initiatives around digitisation, HP has been a key partner, whether it’s the first computerised railway ticketing, computerisation of government departments or courts, digitisation of banks, the UID scheme and the recent digital India initiatives where HP has been a key enabler. So we took up on ourselves a challenge of figuring out how do we help these small and medium businesses. This was a very big task and we knew we couldn’t do it alone, so we entered into a strategic partnership

with KPMG by joining hands to launch a very comprehensive GST solution that will help millions of SME customer’s transition into GST regime with confidence and with minimum interruption. This solution brings the best that each company has to offer. HP has to reach nearly 700 cities in India and sell these solutions (PC, Desktop laptop, Printers and POS). That is important because lot of these small and medium businesses are spread all over India. KPMG has taken their expertise and put that into the GST solutions.”

Speaking on the occasion S N Tripathi, Additional Secretary and Development Commissioner MSME, Government of India, “The idea that our Prime Minister is trying to uphold is that the MSMEs that are spread all over India can be included in one tax, one nation, and one market regime without any pain. The MSME landscape is very wide; there are 67 million enterprise employing 110 million Indians, producing 6000 products, contributing 45% of the manufactured process, contributing 7% of the GDP etc. If we take up the compliance of taxes, may be the sharing in the amount of tax will be less but the scope is big. Our Prime Minister is working to facilitate them so that the transition to GST becomes smooth.”

Speaking on the occasion, Arun Kumar, Chairman & CEO, KPMG India said, “GST is the biggest tax reform in India since Independence. It will unite multiple fragmented tax systems into a unified tax regime. For years, the dreams of trading freely amongst ourselves were not realized by cascading excise barriers. By removing these barriers, the GST takes a golden leap towards creating an integrated Indian market. For the first time we will have a true common market in the country. However, before we get there, significant challenges are there as we transition into the GST system, ensuring barrier free mobility of goods and services within an integrated market. Upon implementation of GST, will lead to near term challenges due to fundamental restructuring of the manner the taxes are filed. The challenges will have a significant impact on vulnerable sections of the Indian economy, which are the MSMEs consisting of small manufacturers and suppliers. Since, GST will increase information intensity, it will imply that businesses must adopt the IT infrastructure to enable them to adjust with the transition to the GST regime.”

INDUSTRY WATCH


Explaining the features of the product, Ketan Patel, Sr Director,Personal Systems, HP India said, “A lot of effort has been put in to designing the software; still we are adding more features which will be customer friendly. Mainly, the thought came because we realized that 80% the total 8.5 million tax base which is estimated in the GST regime actually consists of MSMEs. Out of this, 80-90% of that is coming under the bracket of Micro and Small leaders. This is a great step towards participating in the government’s move to introduce GST to the lower level of the business strata. We are very happy that it has come up very well. It will function like - if a dealer has multiple shops in a state, he can integrate all those data from each of the computers into one master computer, so that it becomes easy for the dealer to file the return. It is auto-prepared, auto-uploaded and the most important factor is that they will be getting expert guidance on how to operate the system. The specialized help desk support for GST and operational queries has been set up and the product is finally available from 5th June 2017.”

Addressing the audience, Prakash Kumar, CEO- GSTN, who has been given the responsibility of creating the IT backbone for GST said, “I am really happy to see a solution which has been put by both the giants that takes care of the machine, the connectivity, the applications and the most important part, the support; everything bundled into one on a per month fee and that’s ideal for our MSMEs who constitute a huge percentage of our tax payer base. Just to give you some statistics on the data, in 2015-16 from all the states, below Rs 1.5 crore turnovers, the percentage of tax payer was 87%. That’s a huge number and those are the people whom we are looking at as how they will comply with the requirements, create a GSTR-1 and then reconcile all their purchases with all the supplies which have been made. And why this happens because under GST there are no paper based returns. So all the returns have to be filed electronically and the main return which is the ‘supply return’ will consist of the details of B2B invoice data and consolidated data on B2C. Of course businesses involved in Exports will also come into it.

So our tool was very much required. This is the second solution which I have seen of this kind which covers everything from generation of invoices, creation of GSTR-1, doing reconciliation, uploading GSTR-1, GSTR-2 and taking care of all the requirements which are there for the taxpayer. Talking about the security, we have used the best of class security available in the country and it is fully secured, because the data which is getting collected is automatically encrypted and copied into various formats and then fully secured. In the recent approval, the government has allowed Electronic Verification Code ( EVC) based on Aadhaar number, so anyone who wants to file need not to have a digital signature or the E-signature. He can also use the EVC the way income tax allows and that will be the big thing for small tax payers because they don’t need to buy a DSC dongle or go for e-sign. They can simply use their Aadhaar for authentication.”


Partners grapple with GST compliance, demand more clarity

TheITChannelisveryoptimisticaboutthenewtaxregime.However,theyseekmoreclarityonthecomplexcomponentsofthenewtaxationpolicythatwillhaveagreaterimpactontheirbusiness

With July 1 for the rollout of historic Goods and Services Tax (GST) getting

closer, organizations across the industry domain are gearing up for the new tax regime that aims to introduce uniform taxation in India. Touted to be a revolutionary change brought about by the Government, GST is expected to eliminate several direct and indirect taxes to provide ease to business owners and curb tax evasion. The IT Channel is very optimistic about GST. However, they seek more clarity on the complex components of the new taxation policy that will have a greater impact on their business.

Disappointment over New Tax Slab...

While most trade bodies have welcomed the GST initiative, channel partners seem not fully geared for the new tax regime. Partners have expressed disappointment over the GST Council’s decision to fix 18-per cent tax rate for the IT products and services, which is 3-per cent higher than the current 15-per cent services tax. There is also an ambiguity among partners on the different taxation rates for Central GST and State GST. Until now, most of the IT products have been put under the electronics, electrical and home appliances category. Partners opine that different tax slabs for different categories of products would increase the prices of certain IT products and also create complexity in the tax computation. Also, they say that imposition

of cess on IT products and certain exceptions may dilute the basic purpose of “One Nation One Tax”.

“The channel as a whole is not prepared for the major challenges of reportage demands of the GST regime. We have consulted Chartered Accountant bodies, experts from government offices, but things are not at all clear. Majority of our business being service business, we just have to charge applicable percentage, which makes it easy for us on services and which we are ready for. However, partners are not ready for reporting and the number of reports they have to file. My question to the government will be: If the difference is payable from a particular date, are we going to be allowed input credit Kshitij Kotak

Chief Innovation Officer, Fortune Grecells

Amarnath ShettyManaging Director, LDS Infotech

Limesh ParekhCEO, Enjay IT Solutions

VAR SPEAK


for service tax and VAT we have paid already and on which credit is not available currently?” asks Kshitij Kotak, Chief Innovation Officer, Fortune Grecells.

Many partners believe that GST will lead to shortage of products that will result in increase in prices as supply will be short due to low inventory. “GST will change the way we do business. We are still waiting for more clarity set off to be taken on closing stock as on 30th June, 2017 as it will have huge impact on doing business.

Initially, there will be shortage of products as all dealers are working on having minimum stocks. Low inventory will result in higher prices. There is also no clarity on products such as monitors along with multifunction printers and printer cartridges as they are in 28 per cent slab. “Partners dealing in these product lines may suffer because of the cost,” says Sanjeev Pathare, Owner of Pune-based Computer Shoppe.

Endorsing similar views, Rajkumar Jain, Owner of Indore-based Business Automation, said, “We will have clear understanding and clarity only after a few months of experience with GST taxation. But, presumably, as we look at it now, the IT business will face much more stringent competition, thinner margins, customers’ restricting themselves to minimize the IT spend, absence of huge business funnels are few of the changes the industry may witness for at least one year after GST coming into force.”

Stock Clearance A Major Challenge...

Stock clearance is a major challenge partners are facing currently and they are running out of time to get rid of the old inventory before the rollout of GST. This has increased the pressure on the resellers and SIs to clear their stock and many channel partners are expected to miss the deadline due to shortage of time.

“Clearing inventory is the major challenge everyone is facing. Those having cleared their stock and buying under GST will have 12 per cent unfair advantage against those who are still carrying stocks. Partners are also not ready for reporting and the number of reports we have to file. Itemised filing online is going to be a major challenge for places where internet is slow and supply of electricity unreliable,” says Kshitij Kotak, Chief Innovation Officer, Fortune Grecells.

“Being a channel partner, we have to clear all our old stocks and try to keep our tax liability clear for the current tax regime. As from 1st July, 2017 onwards, billing has to be done as per GST. We have to keep a close track on each and every transaction so that we do not have a tax refund to claim or any other compliance issues,” adds Amarnath Shetty, Managing Director, LDS Infotech.

Channel perplexed between Tally and GSPs...

The Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN), which is building the technological infrastructure for the implementation of the GST, has finalized companies as the GST Suvidha Providers (GSPs), to facilitate seamless and hassle-free transition. GSPs are expected to help businesses with complex internal processes to comply with the GST regime. While partners are contemplating to get acquainted with the new tax, many of them are not very keen to associate with GSP and will rather prefer to stick to their legacy software or own ERP software.

“As far as systems are concerned, we use Tally and we trust that it will take care of systems. We have toyed with Tally as a GSP, we

are a largest Tally Cloud provider in India. As far as the change in the business environment is concerned, not much has changed for us. As we are more of a service company, we are charging service tax and now we will charge GST,” opines Limesh Parekh, CEO, Enjay IT Solutions.

B. Ananda Rao, CEO of Bengaluru-based Par Data Systems, says, “In the evolving environment of the new GST regime, it is envisioned that the GSP concept is going to play a very important and strategic role, but at present we are not sure about it. We might look for this option once the GST comes into force.”

Mumbai-based solution provider Techlink Infoware has developed its own software product TRADEANNEX Trading ERP Software which seamlessly interacts with third-party applications of the GST Suvidha Provider in turn with the GST system. The company intends to roll out the software solution internally and with the installed customer base within the time of the proposed changes over the regime. Techlink is also closely associated with some GST Suvidha Providers.

“Our ERP software has pan-India installed

customer base in various business verticals. It has the capability to build an application at par with the GST Suvidha Provider. The compliance outputs forms and transactional information in the proposed GST regime are in the testing mode. It is ready with the basic framework of third-party application like GSP,” says K. R. Chaube, Director, Techlink Infoware.

SDs get rid of Double Taxation...While the majority of channel partners have

welcomed the GST, many feel that end-users will gain from the new tax regime and it will hardly benefit the IT industry. However, the GST has brought a major relief to the software developed by solving the decades old issue of double taxation on software. There are many disputes in the present regime due to the classification of software. The State Governments hold the view that software are goods, hence demand VAT, while the Central Government claims that software is a service, hence demands service tax. As a result of this difference in approach, the IT industry has been suffering double taxation since 2008 and has ended up paying both the taxes in most situations.

At present, software developers are paying 15 per cent (ST) plus 6 per cent (VAT / CST) +5.5 per cent (Octroi / LBT) = 26.50 per cent tax, which increases the price of software products. With GST, the dispute would go as the single tax of 18 per cent comes into force, which will help to reduce the price which is a positive indication of IT business. Most importantly, partners will not have any barrier of boundary and can offer their products and services to any part of the country.

Partners proactive to adapt Changes...

GST is quite different from the existing indirect taxation system in the country. For effective implementation, partners need to learn, unlearn, and relearn the GST, not only in theory but also in practice. More importantly, they need to change their mindset, approach and attitude towards business and taxpaying mechanism.

Channel partners are very proactive in understanding the new tax regime. “We got registered with GST which is the very first step to be taken, implementing new software which helps us in timely compliance, redesigning the invoice and other stationery format in line with requirement of GST. We are also attending

K. R. ChaubeDirector, Techlink Infoware

Chetan ShahCEO, Xpress Computers

Devendra DeshmukhCEO, e-Zest


Sanjeev PathareOwner, Computer Shoppe

Rajkumar JainOwner, Business Automation

B. Ananda RaoCEO, Par Data Systems

various seminars and training programmes on effective implementation of the GST in our organization,” says B. Ananda Rao, CEO, Par Data Systems.

Partners are making all-out efforts for smooth transition into a new tax regime. However, there is still much ambiguity around the implementation route that partners will follow. Lack of automation and proper HR policies are major challenges in the GST implementation such as lacking proper software infrastructure and trained workforce. To facilitate the hassle-free GST compliance, partners have also started with training and enablement of workforce and modifying backend software accounting software for GST.

“GST implementation will mean a huge learning curve for millions for people across

the country. Obviously, the online GST regime will have its own teething problems. The main problems will include training of the entire workforce, modifying backend software for GST and accounting software and procedures in practical life. We are gearing up for GST by enabling our backend software systems to integrate GST, train pre-sales staff on product costs after GST kicks in, train accounts, purchase and store staff on managing GST records, tax compliance and backend related online work,” says Chetan Shah, CEO, Xpress Computers.

Similarly, Pune-based e-Zest is enabling its accounting team to understand the complex components in the filing of the new tax regime. “Most of our customers have already requested our GST details via extranet supplier portal or document. Our accounts team has gone through

multiple training programs to understand the GST and complexities associated with it. We are also requesting vendors to share their GST programs,” says Devendra Deshmukh, CEO, Pune-based software solutions company e-Zest.

While channel partners have already started taking steps to comply with the new tax structure, some of them preferred wait-and-watch policy to evaluate both its short-term and long-term impact on their business. Though the preparedness of the partners is in their various stages and many of them are trying hard to catch up with the deadline, they are optimistic about the major reforms by the government in the taxation and hope for “Acche Din” for the IT industry in the near future. n

Priyanka [email protected]

Netmagic treading the channel ‘path’ for business growth

Shantaram Shinde, India Channel Head – Netmagic (An NTT Communications Company) shares with VARINDIA the company’s channel perspective and how Netmagic has been on a winning streak after aligning its business model with that of the channel- Is Netmagic a channel centric company completely?

We are a channel friendly company; initially there have been a lot of challenges when we were slowly inducting channel partners in our business model, but in the last 8 years we have evolved a lot. Now we handle not only the partners, but also the distributors Ingram Micro, Inflow Technologies, Avnet, who are also our partners. At present, the channel business contributes to over 20 percent of Netmagic India’s overall revenues and we have a roadmap to increase that business to 30-35 percent by the end of this fiscal year.

What is Netmagic's channel strategy?

The current structure of the channel ecosystem that has been there from the last 7 to 8 years still remains the same. But the maturity level in our partners is clearly visible now. We have a good number of partners, around 130+ partners. Almost 75 to 80% partners are contributing to our business, who happens to be our active partners.

We have also categorized our partners as per their strength, which will help us in aligning our channel programs, marketing activities, events, EDMs and all the other activities. For example, we have created a few categories like cloud service analysis partners, security service partners, application integration partners and so on. So for instance if we see a good scope for SAP HANA implementation, that’s where our application integration partners will help us.

We have signed up a lot of partners, but the 130+ are our actively engaging partners. Going forward we are thinking of 25-30% increase in active partners. We also have categories of partners like premium partner, elite partner and referral partner. Further, the active partners would be a part of these categories of partners.

How would you define the role of your partner?

The role of our channel can be defined in two ways. Firstly, our partner identifies the opportunity and then brings to us. We jointly work and close the business. Another way is that a partner enters into an opportunity and takes it to a certain level by making the value additions to it. They involve Netmagic for any kind of documentation work or at any stage of the delivery process, where it feels that Netmagic should step in.

From Netmagic to partners, there are opportunities in services delivery and services operation stage. There are times when we require the partner’s help to complete and fulfill delivery commitments. This is how we define the opportunities flowing from Netmagic to partners. n

Samrita [email protected]

FACE TO FACE

VAR SPEAK


FDS and Supertron

bags honour at The Oval,

LondonFourth Dimension Solutions (FDS)

and Supertron Electronics were conferred the esteemed title of Power Brands Industry Trendsetter at the recently concluded Annual Global Power Brands compendium, held at The Oval, London on 12th May, 2017.

The Global Power Brands compendium launch was presided over by legendary cricketers Alec Stewart (former captain of the English cricket team) and Kumar Sangakkara (one of the greatest Sri Lankan ODI players) in the presence of international luminaries from across the globe.

V. K. Bhandari, Chairman and Managing Director, Supertron Electronics, said, “We are delighted to have received this award and appreciation from Global Power Brands compendium. This has encouraged us to work harder and set new benchmarks for the company. I thank everyone associated with this compendium for this recognition.”

Fourth Dimension Solution was founded in 2011, with a mission to provide best solutions and services in areas of administration, marketing and IT. Its dedication towards its clients has become a great hallmark of the company. FDS’s highly dedicated and self motivated staff is always

available for clients and it tries to remove obstacles and successfully lead customer projects from implement to delivery stage.

Supertron is a leading IT & Telecom distribution & services intermediary in India. It boasts of a wide and deep national network of over 9000 retail points, robust 24x7 logistics support, safe warehousing and an immense wealth of goodwill earned through years of ethical business practices. The company also boasts off an unparalleled network and support system in place to cater to all formats of the business – be it traditional retail, modern trade or the online marketplace.

CHANNEL BUZZ

Epson: A Pioneer in 3LCD projectorIn a chat with VARINDIA, P. Satyanarayana- Director, Visual Products, Epson India discusses about the India projector market, its 3LCD projector technology and strategy to maintain the top position

How do you see the upcoming projector market in India ?

Epson has a market share of 29.9% in India and globally it is 35% . So there is a scope to try and catch up the world wide market share. If you look a few years back, projector was a luxury, but today it is no more. Also, now with so many villas and apartments coming up, we have the home theater application which is actually gaining momentum in Indian market. We see quite a bit of home theater projectors being sold where in customers are trying to have one dedicated room in their house with this home theater application in order to get the theater effect. In next 5 years projector market is going to grow in a big way.

Kindly brief about your market positioning?

There are 2 key technologies in the projection market, one is 3LCD and the other is DLP. Epson is the pioneer in the 3LCD because this is our own technology which we have invented. The prime difference between 3LCD and DLP is actually the output of the projector. In 3LCD, by 3000 lumens we mean both the white light output and also the colour light output. When it comes to 3000 lumens DLP projector it means only the white light. Colour is actually close to

500 to 600 lumens. So this is the major difference. When the same image is projected on the screen by these two projectors side by side, customers can clearly see the vividness and brightness.

What strategy you have adopted to be in the top position?

We are trying to use multiple activities to keep ourselves floating in the same position- one is channel, second is end customers and third is association with System Integrators. For last one and a half years we have been consistently coming out with some programs so that channel promotes Epson product. Secondly, we have started organising the colour light output seminar to educate customers. We educate the customer to not just look at white light brightness in the projector but also colour light output. Third, we are also trying to associate with the System Integrators. There are quite a few high end customers who will be looking for audio visual solutions and these solutions are provided by some audio visual integrators or some consultants in the industry.

What are the verticals those have adopted in 3LCD technology?

Basically if you look at 3LCD, Epson was primarily there from the entry level upto the mid and high-end level, which is upto 10000

lumens category. Last year we have introduced high brightness range which is going upto 25000 lumens. That is where we have introduced laser series or laser lights projectors, which is starting from 7000 lumens to 25000 lumens. Epson was not present in this particular segment and is first to introduce 3LCD projector in the laser light source at 25000 lumens. So now we are trying to consolidate and probably make our mark in the high lumen segmentation also.

If you look at high brightness projectors, these are used in small medium auditoriums. These projectors can be used in museums, concerts, education institution and training centers. It also used for Event management. These are the different areas where this high brightness range will continue to effect. n


In a chat with VARINDIA, Ramesh Mamgain, Country Manager, Commvault discusses the importance of Cyber security, security architecture, market strategy and growth verticals

A 21 year old company with a global presence, Commvault offers an entire range of backup, archival, data protection at length and breadth of data protection and information management. It does it through a single software code. As per the company, Cyber Security is important as everything these days are digital and is computer controlled.

“Cyber security is a very important subject; it is something which has assumed proportion which are much-much bigger than what we think of. Everything today is digital; whether your weapon system, news, backing system, power generation and distribution everything is computer controlled today. If it’s not protected well, the country and the whole system can come to a halt. It’s not only about banking, it’s about power distribution, about security, everything,” says Ramesh Mamgain, Country Manager, Commvault.

Further talking about growth of the Cyber security market, Ramesh adds, “This is a fairly fast growing market. As per IDC, I think the data protection market is growing almost by 7 to 8% year on year as compared to the storage market which is probably de-growing right now in terms of value in terms of terabyte sold. But since the price of storage is coming down we are saying the storage market is at best static may be de-growing but on the data protection side what IDC forecasting is about 7 to 8% growth year on year on an average.”

Security ArchitectureCommvault follows the architecture of

simple data where it picks up the data, stores it in a secure place and also identifies and index the data.

“One is the simple data where you just pick up the data from somewhere and we store it in a secure place. It could be offline in terms of tape it could be online in terms of disk. There could be various methodologies of storing the data. What we do is, we are not just only copying the data and keeping a copy of it but our software is aware of what kind of data it is. So, it is not just

forth,” states Ramesh. Talking about the distributors, Ramesh

mentions that, “We have two distributors- Ingram Micro and Technobind. Also there are around 150 to 200 registered partners with us that we work with. So all the businesses might be led by us or partners but everything is routed through distribution to us. So any partner who is placing order he will be placing through one of our distributors. Be it Technobind or be it Ingram.”

Growth VerticalsThough Commvault is observing an overall

pull from the market but FSI, BFSI, government and manufacturing are the major growth verticals.

“Segment wise we are looking at FSIs and BFSIs is a big segment for us. Government is another one where we have won some large projects, then IT/ITES is another one where we have seen a lot of attraction, manufacturing is another segment and won lots of projects. These are the four basic and big ones where we are seeing traction, but otherwise we are seeing attraction all over,” remarks Ramesh.

Talking about the largest accounts he says, “We have some of the largest accounts in government and some in banking. In the last 2 years we have been growing at a very-very large pace. In India we have been growing, almost turning it into a triple digit business year on year.” n

picking the data from here and putting it there, we know what data it is, we index the entire data and we know where we have kept what,” explains Ramesh.

Market StrategyCommvault focuses on its four pillars as its

go-to-market-strategy. It works closely with its Alliance Partners, Tier2 partners and also GSIs. The company along with its Partners interacts with key customers where Commvault solutions are a part of the entire offerings.

“There are 3-4 pillars that we look at. One is definitely the Alliance Partner that we work very closely with most of the hardware vendors like Hitachi, Cisco etc. We also work very closely with Azure and AWS. The second root of market is Tier2 partners, which is the distribution led model which most of the companies do.

Third is GSIs which is the Global System Integrators like Wipro, TCS and HCL in the world. What we do is also some of the enterprise customers while the fulfillment might be happening through partners but we also interact with some of our large key customers where we go directly but obviously this goes as a part of the solution. So unless it’s a backup or archival led deal, typically you’ll find our softwares as a part of mix of larger solutions wherein you’ll have probably some of the application, storage some servers some networking and so and so

RameshMamgainCountryManagerCommvault

Commvault witnesses triple digit y-o-y growth in India

"This is an exciting time for COMMVAULT in India, we see lots of growth in data protection area. This is one area on which people were not really focussing or they were not giving the due importance but with the recent incident like Wanna cry, I think we will see lots of update on data protection requirements in the country"


VAR SECURITY

CP Plus organizes King's Meet for its Partners

For CP Plus, relationship holds great value and especially a relationship between its customers and partners are of immense importance. It has always acknowledged the contribution of its partners which has helped the company to grow. So to recognize the efforts of the partners, CP PLUS has recently organized a Kings Meet for its Partners. In the event its star partners were offered a chance to meet and greet the Kings XI Punjab team players. CP PLUS has been the official surveillance partner of Kings XI Punjab at the Indian Premier League, Season 10. By organizing such events, it aims to express its gratitude towards them.

Explaining about the meet Yogesh B. Dutta, COO, CP PLUS said, “CP PLUS was the official sponsor of Kings XI Punjab, and during this association it gave its partners an opportunity to meet and greet with the team players. In this event CP PLUS partners were also given trophies and bats signed by their favorite players.”

Kings Meet was a day long program conducted at the JW Marriott, Chandigarh last month. Guests who were present at the event were CP PLUS star partners from the Punjab region. It began with a gala lunch followed by a walk through with the brand’s story. Soon after the presentation, a quiz was conducted, the winners of which were awarded by the Kings XI Punjab team players. The audience was brimming with energy and enthusiasm at the event, excited to meet their favorite players.

Honeywell to acquire industrial cyber security company Nextnine

Honeywell has signed a definitive agreement to purchase Nextnine, a privately held provider of security management solutions and technologies for industrial cyber security.

The addition of Nextnine’s industry-leading security solutions and secure remote service capabilities will enhance the company’s existing range of innovative cyber security technologies and significantly increase Honeywell’s Connected Plant cyber security customer base.

Nextnine’s flagship technology, ICS Shield, protects industrial sites from cyber security attacks and enables remote monitoring of assets. It complements Honeywell’s extensive cyber security portfolio with a solution that is used at more than 6,200 sites globally across the oil and gas, utility, chemical, mining and manufacturing sectors.

Previously, ICS Shield had to be deployed separately for each control system vendor, resulting in multiple and separate installations at a single customer site. With this acquisition, customers will be able to deploy and operate a single system, thereby simplifying and better securing their entire site with Honeywell’s proven capability to provide multi-vendor solutions.

Founded in 1998, Nextnine has been backed to date by Infinity VC, XT Hi-Tech and several other prominent investors.

Vimal Kapur, president of Honeywell Process Solutions said, “This acquisition shows our ongoing commitment to providing our customers with a comprehensive portfolio of cyber security solutions to protect and defend their industrial control systems and process control networks. Honeywell’s extensive global reach will increase Nextnine’s availability to a broader range of customers.”

Nextnine’s security solutions also will be a key enabler of Honeywell Connected Plant, which combines Honeywell’s unmatched industrial expertise, software and digital technologies to make its customers’ operations more reliable, profitable and secure than ever before possible. Cyber security is a critical part of that program.

Honeywell has the largest industrial cyber security research capabilities in the industry and has continued to increase its industrial cyber security offerings. Two such solutions are Risk Manager, the industry’s first solution to proactively monitor, measure and manage industrial cyber security risks, and Secure Media Exchange (SMX), which protects plants against threats from removable media such as USB flash drives.


VAR MOBILITY

iVOOMi sees opportunity in India MarketIn a chat with VARINDIA, Ashwin Bhandari, CEO, iVOOMi, India discusses about smartphone market in the country,

strategy, target verticals, service support, new capabilities and much more

What kind of technological advancements introduced by iVOOMi is the last 2 years?

iVOOMi is known for innovation and re-engineering. We have done many small innovations to bring value and technology benefits in form of better design, high end features to the consumers.

How do you find Indian smartphone market? Indian market is the fastest growing market. We see this market as a

big opportunity for iVOOMi as there is lot of space available for product companies which can deliver and design value products. We are completely convinced with the market opportunity and looking forward to invest in the product development capabilities and build technology for the masses.

As you must be well aware of Indian consumer psyche by now, what are the most common features that they aspire to have in their phones? Any new product that iVOOMI will launch soon?

Indian consumer is the most intelligent and demanding consumer. Due to which it gives a new challenge as the product company to be innovative and growing always. We are focussed on working with the strategy of constantly keep innovating and develop newer technologies every day.

We have a disruptive product offering on our plate as an offer to the Indian consumer, we would be releasing 2 different value series for the market and deliver high end features and technology to the masses. We will start announcing the same in the months’ time from now.

In a competitive market like India where it is crowded with both international and national brands, how iVOOMi is strategising to face the challenges? What strategy for you adopting to tap on the feature phone market?

We see a huge opportunity in the Indian market, because not many players in the market arrive in with a product background, whereas, at the same time we come from a product design background. We see the same to be our biggest strength and differentiation for us. We would keep building value and innovative offering for the market which will keep us ahead of time and competitive in the market.

What are the target verticals for iVOOMi? We have a wide range of product portfolio from different categories

which we will be building for the tier 2 and 3 category consumers. Our aim is to bring great products that will change life for the tier 2 and 3 consumers.

How do you try to be at the cutting edge amidst hundreds of other home-grown Indian brands?

We see the market dynamics changing and future would be better for the products and Technology Company. We see technology driven business whereas before technology was supporting business to grow.

Further with Make in India, change in the taxation structure, the ground would be at similar level for the new and old players and we are working on delivering.

What is your strategy around support? How many service stations are there in India and how many of them are owned by iVOOMI?

We are building our own after sales network and would be building a complete structure to deliver service within 24hrs to every corner of country.

Do you have any plans to open manufacturing unit or R&D Center in India?

We plan to mobilise our RnD & design capabilities in the India. We just need to get the clarity on the policies from the government. Currently we plan to build a global capability by mid of 2019.

Why did you choose online as the mode to approach customers? Do you have any plans to sell offline?

We would be taking the channels with a single approach of delivering value to our consumer in the most cost effective manner. Our most important agenda is to reach our target in a way that we ensure minimal leakage on the cost of sales. n


VAR MOBILITY

Lava’s Z10 Smartphone now available with 3GB RAM

Motorola launches Moto Z2 Play and Moto Mods

ASUS launches ZenFone Live Smartphone

Alcatel unveils its Pixi 4(7) 4G on Flipkart

Lava’s Z10 is smartphone is now available with 3GB

RAM, making the device more powerful to smoothly handle heavy tasks and graphics. The latest version of the device is already available at Lava retail stores.

LAVA Z10 is equipped with Big Pixel Sensor that captures 50% more light which results in brighter and sharper images even in low light. It comes with 5-megapixel front camera and 8-megapixel back camera.

The smartphone’s 5” 2.5D curved display made of Series 5 metal back cover lends a sleek finish especially with its premium chrome edges. Packed with 2,620mAh ATL battery, the device has a wide storage capacity of 16GB internal memory to store your precious music, videos, pictures and applications. The smartphone is available at a pocket-friendly price of Rs.11,500/-. Lava

Motorola has announced a new addition in the Z

family with Moto Z2 Play, which can instantly transform into exactly what you need, when you need it, when paired with Moto Mods.

With a thinner, lighter design and faster performance, the second generation Moto Z Play delivers on the features you care about, while still offering transformative experiences with Moto Mods.

Moto Z2 Play features an all-metal unibody design that not only looks great, but stands up to everyday wear and tear. The

Z10 comes with a 365-days screen replacement policy which ensures lifetime mobile screen replacement to the customers. It also offers “30-Day Replacement Policy” where consumers can get their devices replaced with a new one in case of a hardware damage within a span of 30 days of purchase.

13.97 cm (5.5”) Full HD Super AMOLED display offers razor sharp details, no matter what you’re looking at. The smartphone has 2.2 GHz octa-core processor and gets up to 7 hours of power in just 15 minutes of charging.

With the 5MP front camera and dual color corrected flash, one can take selfies day or night. The night display feature will automatically adjust your screen to warmer tones at night, reducing the blue light that can disrupt your sleep.

Moto Z2 Play will be available in India starting at Rs. 27,999/-.

ASUS has unveiled ZenFone Live smartphone real-time

beautification technology.ZenFone Live features front

camera with large, 1.4µm sensor pixels for 2X greater light sensitivity and a soft-light LED flash. It also has dual micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) microphones to help eliminate background noise and enhance voice pickup, an innovative five-magnet speaker and smart amplifier for powerful audio, along with the DTS Headphone, a 2.5D curved display and a lustrous sandblasted metallic finish.

ZenFone Live’s BeautyLive combines smart software algorithms and hardware acceleration to automatically smooth skin and remove blemishes, and it integrates seamlessly with Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. The BeautyLive feature works with both front and rear camera. The sensor has extra-large, 1.4μm pixels that improve sensitivity to light by up to 200 per cent compared to smartphones with standard smaller pixels. ZenFone Live also has a soft-light LED flash that illuminates true skin tones, and it’s equipped with a wide-angle lens with an 82° field of view—so users are able to frame, capture details in wide angle

and broadcast it to the world.

ZenFone Live also has a 13MP rear

c a m e r a with f/2.0- a p e r t u r e , five-prism rear lens, and benefits from ASUS PixelMaster’s low-light technology to increase light sensitivity by up to 400 per cent. It also enhances noise reduction and boosts colour contrast by up to 400 per cent. It sports up to 12 different camera modes, including real-time Beautification, Low Light and Super Resolution modes, to capture beautiful, high-resolution photos.

Priced at Rs.9, 999, the ASUS ZenFone Live will be available from now with all major e-tailers.

Alcatel has rolled out its new offering, the Pixi 4 (7) 4G

in the Indian market. The tablet comes with smoky grey and volcano black colours.

The Pixi 4(7) 4G also takes internet browsing to the next level with CAT4 LTE, that offers blistering speed to the users. The tablet comes with a host of other incredible features like 8Mpxl camera with time lapse and geo tag, 1,080p video capture and playback, powerful battery and the latest Android software. The smartphone comes with a large 7” FD display. The phone provides 8.25 hours of video playback under standard conditions, using internal memory. The CAT 4 LTE is made for speed. The users can browse on the go at stunning speeds. It comes with a pretty package. The slick painting finish and beautiful colours makes Pixi 4(7) a sight to behold.It features 4,000mAh battery, MTK8735D Android M and Quad-Core 1.1GHz CPU G-sensor, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, and dual SIM slots.

Praveen Valecha, Regional Director, Alcatel India, remarked, “The Pixi 4(7) series isn’t just a tablet. It is an all in one package, which is made for a hassle free and seamless user experience. Continuing with Pixi 4(6) success, we want to target the millennials who enjoy watching movies while on the move. The phone provides 8.25 hours of video playback and designed to be ultra-sleek, dust- and splash-proof.”

Christian Gatti, Vice-President – International Business, TCL Mobile International Ltd, added, “Alcatel stands, first and foremost, for providing the best user experience and the new Pixi 4(7) is a step in that direction. The partnership with Flipkart shall help us reach the consumers with ease and provide them with some pioneering new products. Our belief of superior consumer service meshes beautifully with Flipkart is known for in India.”

The Pixi 4(7) 4G smartphone will be available in India at a special launch price of Rs.6, 499/-.


The Past, Present and Future of Handset MarketIndia is currently the second-largest

telecommunication market and has the third-highest number of Internet users in the world. Overall, mobile handsets and the smartphone segment witnessed a healthy growth of 6 per cent and 15 per cent YoY, respectively in Q1 2017, and, with the availability of 4G data, consumption on handheld devices is increasing significantly. With this, the mobile services market revenue in India is expected to touch US$37 billion in 2017.

With the government’s favourable regulatory policies, smartphone subscription in India is expected to increase four-fold to 810 million users by 2021, while the total smartphone traffic is expected to grow seventeen-fold to 4.2 Exabytes (EB) per month by 2021, according to the Ericsson Mobility Report.

The Indian smartphone shipment to India was up by 15 per cent in March quarter, reaching 29 million units. The Chinese brands have taken 50 per cent of the market share, as the market recovered from the effects of demonetization in the quarter ended March 2017. According to IDC India, China-based vendors captured 51.4-per cent share of the smartphone shipments, while the share of Indian vendors dropped from 40.5 per cent to 13.5 per cent in the same quarter year on year.

Worldwide, smartphone shipments have grown to 4.3 per cent in 1Q17, which was slightly higher than IDC's previous forecast of 3.6-per cent growth. The data from IDC claims that a total of 347.4 million smartphones were sold in the first quarter of 2017 worldwide. Though the market had been deemed sluggish, consumers continue to show demand for smartphones, flagships in particular.

India is so big. Maybe in ten years, we can have a factory in every state.

Terry GouFounder & Chairman

Foxconn It is true that the smartphone market is

growing at a rapid pace – penetration in the rural areas is much higher than urban areas registering a y-o-y growth. There is also an increase in the mobile Internet users, but no mobile phone company takes the responsibility to educate on the awareness of app-based security and privacy issues are still quite low in the country. No company writes about the statutory remarks on the precautions to be taken on downloading multiple apps. According to experts, while such behaviour is understandable, such ignorance poses numerous threats to smartphone users.

The evolving landscape of cybersecurity as mobile (Android smartphone) and IoT are increasingly at the risk of attack and this will impact the growth of smartphone business globally. Smartphones were by far the most

vulnerable devices, with infections that rose nearly 400 per cent in 2016. Attacks on smartphones represented 85 per cent of all mobile device infections in the second half of the year, according to the report by Nokia.

Ransomware attacks are joining a growing list of threats to mobile phone security. Imagine turning on your smartphone to send a text and finding this threatening notice instead.

Smartphone penetration is likely to grow by four times over the next decade. With the emergence of various Chinese players having come here, there will be a downward push in the pricing of smartphones. With the rise of digital communications by e-commerce and digi payment, 70 per cent of India’s population is in the rural areas and is below the age of 45. There is very less awareness about the mobile phone security in the tier-II and tier-III cities and rural areas.

To meet the rising demand in the Indian smartphone market, Xiaomi has invested in its second manufacturing unit at Foxconn’s Sri City facility in Andhra Pradesh. With this, Xiaomi has entered to the top Five club. Indian companies, which have traditionally dominated the feature phone market, now face challenges from the

Chinese players in this segment, too. The biggest question is on how the Indian market holds the potential for Indian smartphone manufacturers. For most Indian handset makers who are facing survival challenges, the only option left is to raise funds to build local capabilities and marketing, although it may be a difficult option. All the Indian brands Micromax, Intex, Karbonn and Lava were pushed out of the top five smartphone rank by Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo and Lenovo. Samsung continued to retain the top spot, followed by Xiaomi, Vivo, OPPO and Lenovo. The top five brands contribute about 70 per cent of the total smartphone market. LTE is now a default feature for smartphones in India. Samsung has shipped close-to 80 million devices in the first quarter of 2017, up from 77.5 million in the previous quarter. However, Apple remains as the premium brand.

According to the latest research from Counterpoint’s Market Monitor service, smartphone shipments in India grew by a healthy 15 per cent annually in Q1 2017. Commenting on the findings, Karn Chauhan, Research Analyst at Counterpoint Research, said, “India’s smartphone market is witnessing a focus shift in distribution strategy by major brands. Offline brands like OPPO, Vivo and Gionee have now started focussing on online channels as well to gain extra market share. Online only brands like Xiaomi and Motorola are moving fast into offline

Success Mantra Oppo and Vivo simply offered new features and higher specifications at lower prices, much like China's Xiaomi. This works because Apple is a global business and won't cut prices to match local conditions in poor countries like China and India.

Samsung continues to rule India's smartphone market in terms of shipments, which stood at 6 million units during the first quarter of 2017 as against 6.2 million in Q4 2016. China continues to rule the Indian smartphone market. For the second consecutive quarter, no Indian smartphone brand figures in the top 5 rank

VAR ANALYSIS


markets to widen their reach to the mass market, addressing consumers in the tier-II and tier-III cities.” He further added, “While the Chinese smartphone brands are adopting multiple channel

strategies to maximize growth, another Chinese brands iTel is disrupting the other half of market (feature phones) by climbing to the number two overall mobile phone brand for the first time. iTel, which is also the number one mobile phone brand in Africa, is now leveraging its successful low-cost strategy, effective distribution and scale to grow in the Indian market.”

The BBK Electronics-owned both the Chinese handset brands Vivo and Oppo are relying heavily on sports to penetrate into their targeted market – the Indian youth. “Vivo with sports has been able to penetrate into its targeted segment, which is youth, in India,” says Vivek Zhang, Chief Marketing Officer, Vivo India. The companies were founded separately and compete against each other.

Certain aggressive strategies done by the mobile phone vendors like Gionee play

with "Battery and Selfie", OPPO sells on "Selfie expert" and Vivo focusses on "camera and music".

Mobile manufacturers to continue to get incentives, Government assures industry

Catch 11 Owning Apple iPhone is a matter of pride and possession, Apple accounted for 83 per cent of the total smartphone industry profit share. According to the report, Apple’s smartphone division garnered an operating profit of $10.18 billion in Q1 2017. This is almost 83.4 per cent of the $12.21-billion total smartphone operating profits globally!

There is a growing challenge for the local manufacturing capabilities. Government has to come out with policies for the local manufactures, on how could they give them a price edge and provide opportunities to bounce back. The Indian brands are expanding to overseas markets for growth as they are losing their footing in the home market, as per Counterpoint Research.

The GST Council has fixed the tax rate on handsets at 12 per cent, which will raise the prices of handsets by 4–5 per cent. It will have an impact on domestic manufacturing and the Government will need to continue incentives for locally manufactured mobile phones to further push the domestic manufacturing ecosystem. An assurance has been given by the Government to the handset industry that making phones in India will continue to be incentivized even under the Goods and Services Tax regime.

According to Aruna Sundararajan, Secretary, IT and Telecom, “The Ministry is pushing hard

to come out for imposing a basic customs duty (BCD) on top of GST rate on imported devices to ensure that making phones locally would continue to be cheaper for companies compared with imports. Secondly, as per the Indian Cellular Association (ICA), 17.5 crore handset units valued at Rs.90,000 crore were produced locally in 2016-17, compared with 11 crore handsets worth Rs.54,000 crore in the previous year. The growth is expected to accelerate if the incentives continue. As much as 80 per cent of the phones sold in India during the January-March quarter were locally made, as per Counterpoint Research. n

Mobile subscribers in May 2017 reach 940.72 million - COAIThe Indian telecom industry has added 2.27 million mobile subscribers in the mobile telephony market in May 2017, marking another month of

steady growth. COAI reveals that the number of mobile phone subscribers by the end of May 2017 has reached 940.72 million, which includes subscribers of Reliance Jio Infocomm as of April 2017.

The report assessed the growth of mobile subscribers across various circles in India and stated that UP East added the maximum number of subscribers (total 83.54 million) in May 2017. Maharashtra remained at second position with total 79.11 million mobile subscribers and Bihar coming close third with total 76.89 million subscribers.

Among the telecom companies, Bharti Airtel continues to hold the top position, adding another 2.10 million subscribers during May, to take its total subscriber base to 278.60 million. Airtel is closely followed by Vodafone with total 210.95 million subscribers, Idea Cellular with 196.24 million subscribers and RJio with 112.55 million subscribers. With 29.63%, Bharti Airtel continues to own the maximum market share in the industry.

Rajan S Mathews, Director General, COAI, said, “Our aim is to connect every corner of the country. It is heartening to see more cities mounting a sizeable mobile customer base, thereby inspiring us to develop mobile infrastructure in these regions. We hope to keep up this momentum of growth so we can rapidly move closer towards attaining the Government’s vision of fully a connected and empowered Digital India.”

Telecom Companies No. Of Subscribers (in millions)

Bharti Airtel 278.60 million

Vodafone 210.95 million

Idea Cellular 196.24 million

Reliance Jio 112.55 million




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