5th Edition Of SCPC Council Hosted By JDA Software

JDA Software Group, Inc., a leading supply chain planning and execution solutions provider hosted the prestigious event, the 5th Edition of the Supply Chain Practitioners Council (SCPC) in Bangalore.

The event focused on topics such as the supply chain reorganization journey, adaptive supply chain, designing profitable supply chains through differentiation, and challenges in grocery e-commerce. Practitioners from different companies collaborated hands-on on a case study to come up with innovative solutions and shared industry best practices.

The key presenters of the event were V. S. Sudhakar, Co-Founder & Executive Director, BigBasket.com, Vinay Krishna, Supply Chain Director, Cypress Semiconductor, Manish Ghosh, Vice President Global Consulting Partner - Manufacturing, JDA Software, Vijayakumar Seelam, Project Manager, SanDisk, Rohit Saksena, Senior Advisor, Supply Chain Analytics, Dell, and Narasimha Kamath, Product Director, JDA Software.

“SCPC is growing at a rapid pace. We started with the need to connect as supply chain professionals at an individual level.  In the last year, we have been able to extend this connection to an industry level. Of course, our long term vision is to take it to a level where we can influence policy making like other industry associations,” said Rohit Saksena, Senior Advisor, Supply Chain Analytics, Dell.

According to V. S. Sudhakar, Co-founder & Executive Director, BigBasket.com, “Burning cash is easy as VC’s are currently funding heavily in Indian e-commerce space, but one needs to take a balanced approach to make sure that the foundations are strong. A key differentiator in this journey would be supply chain.”

“Order lead time and on-time delivery metrics have significantly improved through supply chain simplification, dual-source manufacturing, and consolidation to turnkey sites,” said Vinay Krishna, Supply Chain Director, Cypress Semiconductor.

Manish Gosh, Vice President, Consulting Partner – Manufacturing, JDA Software, talked about how global companies are leveraging the differentiation and the fast evolving segmentation approach to create value added experience for their customers.

“Inventory postponement is one of the key strategies driving supply chain excellence at SanDisk.” said Vijayakumar Seelam, Project Manager, SanDisk.

Dr. Narasimha Kamath, Product Director, JDA Software, connected the dots by effectively packaging the learning through a case study participation and discussion to ensure the audience left with enriched supply chain knowledge.

SCPC’s first edition was hosted by Dell followed by Cisco, IIM Bangalore and Honeywell.  This edition  witnessed participation of 70 JDA associates and  over 100  senior supply chain experts from various companies like BigBasket.com, Britannia, Café Coffee Day, Cisco, Cypress, Dell, Honeywell , IIMB,  Krypt, Lennox International, Lenovo, Lifetech, Madura Fashions, Maxim, ON Semiconductor, Optum, PepsiCo, SanDisk, Schneider Electric, Sical Logistics, Target, Tata Steel, and Titan. Chainalytics, HCL, HP, IBM, MindTree, Oracle, Systematics, Tally Solutions, and TCS  were also present at this event.

openSUSE Project Board Chaired By Richard Brown

IThe openSUSE Project has announced Richard Brown has been appointed chairperson of the openSUSE board. The openSUSE board provides guidance, governance and support for the openSUSE Project, developer of the reliable, modern and easy-to-use multi-purpose Linux operating system. The board members are elected by the community, and the chair is appointed by SUSE.

“Richard brings a tremendous amount of experience and understanding to his new role as openSUSE board chair,” said Ralf Flaxa, SUSE vice president of engineering. “openSUSE is fortunate to be supported by an active, enthusiastic community – a community Richard is a part of and knows well. His leadership combined with the community's diligence and support will help advance the project to even greater heights.”

Brown has been active in the openSUSE community since 2005 when the project was launched, and he has served as a board member since early 2013. Initially active in testing, bug reporting and providing support via the project's IRC channels, Brown has worked with the Artwork, Marketing and Advocates (formerly Ambassadors) teams and helps maintain GNOME and the branding/theme packages in openSUSE. He is also currently on the openSUSE Membership Officials team that recognizes community contributors. In 2012, Brown was a mentor for openSUSE's involvement in Google's Code-In. In recent years he has led the organization of openSUSE's presence at the FOSDEM conference, the largest FOSS event in Europe. He has more than 10 years of experience as a sysadmin and is currently a QA engineer for SUSE.

Brown said, “As a long-time Linux user and community developer, it is both humbling and exciting to participate in the openSUSE Project as board chair. Hard work and collaboration in the openSUSE community has contributed to a remarkable Linux distribution, and I'm looking forward to ongoing growth in both the community and the openSUSE distribution.”

Innovative Mobile Talent Hunt For Aspiring Film Directors

Continuing to engage with audiences through Cinema, Idea Cellular, India’s 3rd largest mobile operator, has announced ‘Raju Ban Gaya Director’, a unique mobile based contest on its flagship digital property – www.IdeaPopcornStreet.com – to hunt for talent for film making.

The talent hunt will give an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to aspiring film directors to intern with celebrated Bollywood Director, Imtiaz Ali. Aspiring movie directors from across the country can fulfil their dream to work with leading Bollywood directors and step into their shoes to experience the world of Indian cinema by just participating in the ‘short-movie making on mobile’ contest.

According to Sashi Shankar, Chief Marketing Officer, Idea Cellular, “Cinema is core to Entertainment in India and forms a key genre of brand engagement for Idea. Our flagship Bollywood destination, Idea Popcorn Street is designed keeping this insight in mind, and forms an unique and innovative platform which not only entertains users but also encourages them to showcase their creativity. ‘Raju Ban Gaya Director’ is India’s first mobile hunt for film makers, and I am confident that this will provide a stepping board for many aspiring directors to demonstrate their talent and become famous.”

Speaking about the talent hunt, Imtiaz Ali, said "Gone are the days of the legendary 'struggle'. For today's generation a great film is just a mobile phone away. And there are stories everywhere waiting to be captured, and opportunities waiting to be explored.”

Any mobile user in India can participate in ‘Raju Ban Gaya Director’ contest, by just creating an original concept movie of 1 to 3 minutes on the mobile phone and upload it on www.ideapopcornstreet.com. The Jury, comprising of experienced film makers, will shortlist the Top 30 films in the first Round, which will then be put up on the portal for public viewing and voting. Basis the number of votes, the Top 10 films will be selected and the makers of these films will then be asked to create another 5 minute duration film, based on a script given by the Jury, which will once again have to be shot using a mobile phone. The directors will be given two weeks to make this film and will be required to promote and popularise their movie using social media.

These Top 10 movies will also be showcased on www.ideapopcornstreet.com as India’s first mobile film festival. Of these, the Top 4 film makers will be selected who will then go through an interview with the Bollywood Director and his team. The final winner will then get to spend time with the Director, Imtiaz Ali, on the sets of his next venture and get an opportunity to intern with him. 

Last date for submission of the film is July 22, 2014. More details on www.ideapopcornstreet.com

Riverside Selects Accenture To Implement SAP Billing Applications

Accenture has been selected by Riverside Utilities Private Limited (RUPL), a franchise of the Central Electricity Supply Utility (CESU), the largest electricity distribution company in the state of Odisha, to implement and manage a new deployment of the SAP Billing application.

As part of a three-year agreement, through Accenture Enterprise Services for Utilities, Accenture will assist RUPL to implement and run the new solution, which is designed to improve the accuracy and efficiency of meter readings, and customer billing and collections processes. This will help the company enhance its customer service, drive customer satisfaction and reduce complaints. It will also enable the company to better control electricity leakage and more closely monitor its distribution.

“We strive to provide our customers with great service and accurate and timely bills, irrespective of the amount on the bill,” said SS Vashisht, VP Operations, RUPL. “In order to do that in a cost-effective way, whilst also keeping pace with our customers’ rising expectations, we need a billing system that is robust, agile and able to support our growth agenda. We selected Accenture for the implementation due to its extensive experience with integrating SAP solutions and its vast knowledge of the utilities industry.

Sandeep Dutta, managing director, Accenture’s utilities industry group in India, said, “The challenge faced by regional utilities like RUPL is two-fold; first energy losses tend to be quite high, due to commercial and technical leakage; and secondly they have to service a large population of customers in remote regions. This puts a lot of pressure on costs and infrastructure. This new billing solution will help RUPL better manage these costs, while also driving improvements to its customer service.”

Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.

Mphasis Wins Silver In ContactCenterWorld’s 2014

Mphasis, a leading IT services provider, has been awarded the Silver medal in the prestigious Contact Center World’s 9th annual APAC Top Ranking Performer Awards – 2014. This award, widely recognized as the Number 1 Global Contact Center accolade, recognizes the breadth of Mphasis’ offering, the strength of its partnership-style of working, the quality of its people-related processes in addition to the strong impact of its results on the client’s business. Mphasis was awarded the Silver medal under the APAC Large Outsourced Contact Center Category. The award was presented at the regional Contact Center World 9th annual APAC Top Ranking Performer Awards, held in Singapore in early June 2014.

Mphasis was selected as a finalist in a long process, from around 700 entries in APAC, and went on to compete and present at the APAC event, and win the Silver. The Mphasis Banking & Capital Markets BPO team will later compete for the Global Awards amongst the Silver Awardees to be held at Las Vegas in November 2014.

Over the past eleven years, the winning team has grown from a 40 Full Time Equivalents (FTE), single-work stream, simple back-office processing operation, to a multi-channel, 350 FTE center (plus 75 managers and support staff) that provides the full gamut of inbound and outbound customer-facing services for our client’s customers. In the past year, the team has produced excellent customer satisfaction scores (Fizzback Average of 4.6), exceeded targets in key areas, and was awarded an unprecedented score of 100% by the client’s independent UK auditors for LSB (Lending Standards Board) call compliance.

Obi Mobiles Brings Octopus S520 Smartphone

Obi Mobiles has announced the launch of its much anticipated smartphone, Octopus S520 which shall be available initially for purchase through the largest online Marketplace-Snapdeal at Rs. 11,990.

The flagship smartphone from Obi Mobiles packs extreme performance and multitasking capabilities in a sleek metallic design powered by a 1.7 GHz Octa Core processor. As expected in the device of this class it sports the current version of Android Kit Kat 4.4 and an HD IPS Touch Screen.

While introducing the Obi Octopus S520, Ajay Sharma, CEO, Obi Mobiles said, “S520 is a beautifully designed product. It is engineered to highest quality specifications to reliably deliver a superior performance. This flagship device is an affirmation of our stated commitment to extend the best in class smartphone experience. From hardware specifications to the quality of accessories there are no compromises whatsoever, because we know our young customers conduct their lives around their smartphones.”

Speaking about this launch, Tony Navin, Senior Vice President, Snapdeal.com said “The Mobile market in India is growing by folds as customers are increasingly demanding newer technology and innovative products and are willing to support brands that deliver this. In order to meet the growing demand of new technology we have tied up with Obi Mobiles to further enhance the shopping experience of the 25 million+ users of our portal. The latest launch by Obi Mobiles comes packed with features and is sure to offer a great smartphone experience to its users. We are very excited in launching this phone and we look forward to a long term and mutually beneficial relationship with Obi.”

With a full touch 12.7 cm, the Dual SIM, 3G device comes in a sleek minimalistic design with a maximum thickness of just 8.4 mm, 1GB RAM and 8GB Internal Memory expandable to 32GB.

The device is optimised for seamless rendering of media content while all standard smart phone functions are supported in multitasking situations by the powerful octacore processor. The phone package contains a Flip Cover, a Screen Protector along with a best in class USB Charger and in-ear bud type ear phones as a standard offering. The phones are supported by country wide network of over 95 service centres for after sale support.

PayPal Wins Top Technology Leadership Award

PayPal India was honoured with top accolades at the 2014 Zinnov Awards in Bangalore today, establishing itself as a leading technology company in India. Zinnov, a reputed globalization and market expansion advisory firm, recognized PayPal India for excellence in four technology categories — ‘High Impact Global Roles,’ ‘Potential to Solve Large Scale Problems,’ ‘Ecosystem Enablement – Startups,’ and ‘Thought Leadership.’ The jury focused on key attributes such as sustainability, drivers, best-in-class practices and impact. PayPal India stood out in the face of competition from over 250 other nominations from 70 organizations to receive one of the highest number of awards won by any company at the event, setting a new benchmark for industry recognition.

“This is a recognition of our relentless efforts towards becoming one of India’s top technology companies. We are at the forefront of building innovative and impactful solutions for our global customers and the larger ecosystem,” said Anupam Pahuja, General Manager, PayPal India Development Centers. “We are honoured to be recognized in multiple categories by Zinnov, one of the most prestigious awards programmes in the industry. It is a moment of great pride for PayPal in India, and we will continue to focus on enabling connected commerce for a better world through innovation, execution, and technology leadership.”

PayPal India emerged as the winner in the ‘High Impact Global Roles’ and ‘Potential to Solve Large Scale Problems’ categories. Recognizing PayPal for creating a global platform for its employees, the award for ‘High Impact Global Roles’ acknowledged the company for having global leaders from India responsible for delivering the overall PayPal product experience to customers and merchants alike. The award for the ‘Potential to Solve Large Scale Problems’ category recognized PayPal for enabling the development of tangible strategies and state-of-the-art products that can solve customer problems around the world.

PayPal was also awarded for its support for the entrepreneurial community through ‘Start Tank,’ which earned the company the accolade for the ‘Ecosystem Enablement – Startups' category. PayPal Start Tank provides early-stage start-ups with a world-class incubation space and access to global mentors, angel investors, and venture capitalists. The Start Tank runs globally across PayPal offices in Boston, London, and Chennai. PayPal formally launched its Chennai startup incubator in association with The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Chennai in November 2013 and currently hosts four startups.

Pragati Rai, Chief Technology Evangelist at PayPal, received the ‘Thought Leadership Contribution’ award, which recognized her work across various ecosystem initiatives that ensured the success of global campaigns for technologies such as mobile and cloud for engineers. A member of eBay Women in Technology (eWIT), Pragati has made Open Source contributions to the LiMo Foundation for security policies of open source Linux-based mobile operating system, and authored the best-selling book Android Application Security Essentials. 

Significant Growth In Digital Wallet Services In India

Mahindra Comviva, the global leader in providing mobility solutions, in collaboration with Ovum Consulting, has published a whitepaper tracing the growth and uptake of digital wallet services across developed and developing regions over the last 18 months.

The whitepaper examines why these services are becoming increasingly important, along with the benefits offered to customers and the overall ecosystem of operators, banks and merchants. It further highlights the growing trend amongst operators of inking partnerships and deploying white label platforms to enable merchant acquisition, transaction processing and functions pertaining to the role of trusted service manager.

“The potential for digital commerce and payments is extremely promising. However, the true value of digital wallet goes beyond the transaction. Digital wallets have the potential to generate an unprecedented amount of customer transactional data. Service providers can harness this information to design engaging, contextual experiences for each stage of the customer’s interaction on the path to purchase. As the customer progresses through a transaction, service providers for instance, can leverage customer location and transaction data to “listen and respond” to customer’s needs in real-time– e.g. deliver personalized offers”, said Srinivas Nidugondi, Senior Vice President and Head, Mobile Financial Solutions, Mahindra Comviva.

“Realizing the benefits of a customer centric payments strategy requires an open platform that can seamlessly integrate with multiple systems. The underlying wallet delivery architecture must support an open services framework to integrate with payment networks, payment terminals, loyalty and personalization platforms. This drives acceptance at merchant locations, as well as allows consumers greater accessibility to more third-party services, such as price comparisons, offers and deals, accelerating consumer adoption”, he added.

Service providers need to capitalize and further accelerate the uptake of digital services by addressing critical issues like security, possible misuse of personal data and lack of information pertaining to the same. To overcome this, the whitepaper recommends that security credentials be made visible to customers by adopting a simple approach. Moreover, customers require adequate information pertaining to the benefits of using this service, particularly vis a vis other payment mechanisms.

What’s Modi Dream Of 100 Smart Cities? Find Out All From Experts?

Modi’s dream project is building 100 Smart Cities across the country and the 2014 Budget has laid out a roadmap by providing the fund of Rs 7,060 crore? But what are these smart cities? Are they good investment options? Magicbricks asks the experts.

In his Budget-day speech, the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that the Smart Cities will be developed as satellite towns of larger cities and by modernizing the existing mid-sized cities.

Apart from the allocation of Rs. 7,060 crore Magicbricks reveals the other key steps aimed at encouraging the development of Smart Cities and their impact on the Property Market. These include, requirement of built-up area being reduced from 50,000 sq. m to 20,000 sq. m and capital conditions for FDI that have been brought down from US$10 million to US$ 5 million, with just a three year post-completion lock-in period.

What are Smart Cities?

So will these Smart Cities be planned on the same lines as upcoming cities, such as Lavasa, Auroville and Pallava?” asked Magicbricks. “Cities like Lavasa are not considered home for lower or middle-class income groups but are targeted towards the upper middle class. The government is keen on focusing housing for all and that can be possible only through affordable housing.” replied Dr. PR Swarup, director general, Construction Industry Development Council (CIDC), at the `Magicbricks Budget Discussion on Real Estate & Urban Infrastructure’ organized by Magicbricks recently.

But are these efforts enough to convert this vision into a reality? Is this enough? Magicbricks asked real estate experts to find out.

“The seed has been sown, the vision is bang-on, the intent is there and it is a welcome move. But the actual question is how and when will this be implemented,” added Dr. Swarup.

Speaking to Magicbricks he added “The allocated money is just like `token money’. The amount translates into a meager Rs. 70 crore per city, which is not enough to develop one whole city. The blueprint of this dream is still in the pipeline. Identification, time-lining and definition of the concept still remain to be executed. There is also a question mark on how they will provide 24×7 water and electricity, transit, jobs, etc.”

Why Smart Cities?

Magicbricks data clearly shows that development in the country is city-centric and is thus, making a large number of people migrate to the fast-developing cities. The Finance Minister substantiated this fact when he stated, “The pace of migration from the rural areas to the cities is increasing. A neo-middle class is emerging which has the aspiration of better living standards. Unless new cities are developed to accommodate the burgeoning number of people, the existing cities would soon become unlivable.”

Impact of Smart Cities on real estate

Speaking to Magicbricks, experts were upbeat about the impact this decision would have on real estate and on infrastructure across the country. Navin Raheja, chairman, National Real Estate Development Council (Naredco), said, “With the Smart Cities project, there will be a surplus of land issued for urban development and housing. This will ensure that with more supply, the prices of property are reined in.”

Raheja also pointed out to Magicbricks that because of lack of regular planning and small-term perspectives, land utilization is sub-optimal. By freeing up land for planned urban development and long 50-year term plans, cities can continually regenerate themselves and adapt to changing demographics.

V Suresh, principal executive officer, HIRCO, added to the Magicbricks discussion, that Smart Cities should boast of good infrastructure, well-maintained drainage and sewerage facilities, good connectivity and more.

What else does the real estate sector gain from the Budget?

Discussing the impact of the Budget 2014 on the Indian real estate market, the Magicbricks discussion panelists unanimously agreed that the Budget was a positive move towards reviving consumer sentiments in the real estate sector. Vaibhav Sankla, director, H&R Block India Private Limited said that the additional incentive on home loan and the tax rebate is comforting to the business community and the tax payers. “The housing loan rebate raised from Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 2 lakh may also boost youngsters to buy homes,” he said.

Speaking to Magicbricks, Partner and Head Real Estate and Construction, KPMG India, Neeraj Bansal said, “Accepting the modified version of the Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) was also felt to be another positive move. “It will help in easing liquidity requirement for developers, paving the way to raise easy capital and also provide access to retail investors to benefit from regular income and appreciation benefits from the real estate.”

“Overall the government’s commitment to boost the real estate sector seems to be well intentioned. The idea to create Smart Cities was welcomed, but it is still to be seen how this vision of PM Narendra Modi will get off the ground.” summarized Jayashree Kurup, Head of Magicbricks Research and Content.

Now Buy Arsenal’s Exclusive PUMA Merchandise

With the football fever gripping the nation like never before, Myntra.com, India’s leading fashion hub, is metamorphosing itself into a football fan’s paradise. After the launch of its dedicated ‘Football Store’, Myntra.com is now unveiling the much anticipated, new Arsenal Football Club Home and Away kits from PUMA.

Arsenal fans in India will now have the unique opportunity to be the first few to have the privilege of owning their favorite club’s latest season merchandise by PUMA. The collection is spread over 34 different styles, across 43 Arsenal products, priced from Rs. 599 to Rs. 12,999

Myntra’s association with PUMA takes a new leaf with the Arsenal merchandise being available exclusively online first on myntra.com, aligned with the global PUMA-Arsenal launch. Over the next few days Myntra and PUMA will host a series of fan engagement initiatives through social media contests and other activities which began on 11th July and will be open till 25th July 2014. The winners of the contest will be announced on 10th August and Myntra will provide them with a once in a lifetime opportunity to watch an Arsenal match LIVE, in addition to winning a host of Arsenal merchandise.

Speaking on the launch of this exclusive online collection, Vikas Ahuja, Chief Marketing Officer, Myntra, said, “It's a huge honour to be involved with one of the most successful clubs in English football. We are excited to launch PUMA’s exclusive Arsenal collection at a time when the football fever is at its peak, creating more demand for our exclusive World Cup store. With the launch of original Arsenal merchandise, we are actively engaging shoppers who live by the game and aim to create a strong brand loyalty.”

The exclusive Arsenal collection for the 2014/15 season will also be available in PUMA stores across New Delhi (South Extension, Connaught Place, Pacific Mall), Bangalore (100 Feet Road and Brigade), Mumbai (Linking Road and Colaba), Pune (Aundh) and Goa (Panjim). It will be available in all other PUMA exclusive outlets from 1st August onwards.

In May 2014, Myntra launched an exclusive ‘Football Store’ where seven exclusive country team merchandize by popular sports brands like PUMA, Nike, Adidas, FIFA etc. were offered to football fans across the country. The online store has also been providing engaging content around the game and fashion tips to look one’s sporty best this football season.

Microsoft & Cisco Sign Agreement For Data Centre

Today at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, Cisco announced a multi-year sales and go-to-market agreement with Microsoft designed to modernize data centers through the delivery and acceleration of integrated solutions.

Building on a rich history of solution development, Cisco and Microsoft will both invest in sales, marketing and engineering resources to drive global alignment, while delivering deeper technology integration across cloud and data center markets. The companies will focus on integrating market leading technologies, including Cisco Unified Computing System™ (UCS), Cisco Nexus® switching and Microsoft Cloud OS solutions including Windows Server, System Center, SQL Server and Microsoft Azure.

Highlights:

Go-to-Market: 

·      Cisco and Microsoft agree to a three-year go-to-market plan focused on transforming data centers through the delivery of integrated solutions for enterprise customers and service providers.

·      In year one, the companies will focus on six countries—the United States, Canada, UK, Germany, France, and Australia—with expansion to additional countries in the following years.

·      Cisco and Microsoft will align partner incentive programs to accelerate solutions selling via mutual channel partners. 

·      Cisco and Microsoft sales teams will work together on cloud and data center opportunities, including an initial program focused on the migration of Windows 2003 customers to Windows 2012 R2 on the Cisco UCS® platform.

Integrated Solutions:

·      Integrated solutions will focus on private cloud, server migration, service provider, and SQL Server 2014

·      Cisco technologies to include Cisco® UCS, Cisco Nexus switching, Cisco UCS Manager with System Center integration modules, and Cisco PowerTool.

·      Cisco-based integrated infrastructure solutions will include FlexPod with NetApp and Cisco Solutions for EMC VXPEX. 

·      Microsoft technology includes Windows Server 2012 R2, System Center 2012 R2, PowerShell, Microsoft Azure and SQL Server 2014

·      Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure and Cisco InterCloud Fabric to be integrated in the solutions in future releases

Frank Palumbo, Senior Vice President, Global Data Center and Virtualization Sales, Cisco says, “From innovative technologies and global brands to specialized channel partners, Cisco and Microsoft have the ingredients to transform the traditional data center. Now we’re expanding our long-standing technical partnership with Microsoft with an aggressive global go-to-market and sales initiative. By providing our customers and partners with greater sales alignment and even deeper technology integration we will help them transform their data centers and accelerate the journey to the cloud.”

Stephen Boyle, Vice President, Worldwide Enterprise & Partners Group, Microsoft remarks, “Enterprise customers worldwide are betting on Microsoft and Cisco to realize the benefits of our combined cloud and datacenter technologies. Now, together, we’re strengthening our joint efforts to help customers move faster, reduce costs and deliver powerful new applications and services for their businesses.”

SAP's Textiest Moments of Football World Cup 2014

Key drivers of top three hourly SMS spikes (based on 1 minute SMS traffic averages)

1.       USA vs. Belgium: Immediately following the match SMS traffic spikes to 4912% above normal. In fact, SMS traffic from Belgium remained greater than 1000% above normal for 14 minutes immediately after the game.

2.       Costa Rica vs. Netherlands: In the minute after winning the match on penalty kicks, SMS traffic from Netherlands rose 3641% above normal.

      Germany vs. Argentina: Immediately following Germany’s win over Argentina in extra time, SMS traffic rose 1006% above normal

Customized Offers From Micromax & Vodafone

Micromax, country’s 2nd largest smartphone manufacturer & World’s 10th largest mobile phone manufacturer, today announced a strategic partnership with Vodafone India, country’s leading telecom operator. Under this new partnership, Micromax and Vodafone India are coming together to reach out to their set of Indian consumers and provide a more fulfilling device connectivity and experience. Along with the Micromax Canvas Knight 3G Smartphone model, Vodafone India will offer free data usage of up to 2GB for customers not active on a data pack. Vodafone’s focus is to increase consumer data adoption and along-with Micromax’s product expertise.

Commenting on the partnership, Shubhodip Pal, CMO, Micromax, said, “At Micromax, we design and develop mobile products which act as solutions to the needs of the fast-evolving consumers, aiming to provide an enriching device experience.  This partnership embodies our endeavor of democratizing technology for the masses, and we are delighted to partner with Vodafone, the pioneer in their domain, as they share the same belief too.”

The offer which is initially available on the Canvas Knight will be extended to a wider portfolio of Micromax devices driving enriched data experience for users thus delivering a seamless experience.

Commenting on the partnership and sharing his delight on the launch of Canvas Knight, Vivek Mathur, Chief Commercial Officer, Vodafone India said, “We are always looking at opportunities to provide maximum value to our customers through unique partnerships and tie-ups. Our initiative with Micromax is yet another step in that direction. We believe that using the Canvas Knight Smartphone on the Vodafone network will provide an enriching experience for our customers.”

Designed for the discerning consumers seeking a combination of innovation, style and effectiveness, the Canvas Knight boasts of a 1.7GHz True Octa-Core processor packed with 2GB RAM, promising exceptionally fast performance and a smooth interface. Exemplifying excellent graphic quality, the smartphone sports a 12.7 cm (5”) FHD IPS display that offers dynamic contrast and color clarity adding more life and vibrancy to the viewing experience. With a 16MP Rear Camera and 8MP front camera, users can capture all their favourite moments in exceptional clarity. Power packed with 2350 mAh battery, and equipped with 32GB of internal storage, users need not worry about storing their favourite music, images, videos etc. Running on Android 4.4.2 KitKat, users get access to unlimited applications which can be downloaded via the pre-loaded Google Play Store.

Micromax’s Canvas Knight is available at all the leading retail outlets in the country priced at a MOP of Rs. 19,999/- and is available in 3 attractive colors – All-Black, White& Gold and Black & Gold. The Vodafone offer is applicable for subscribers who are not active on data pack. Offer will be activated in 48 hours on first Vodafone SIM inserted in Canvas Knight before October 31, 2014.

Expect Most Volumetric DDoS Attacks In 2014

Arbor Networks Inc., a leading provider of DDoS and advanced threat protection solutions for enterprise and service provider networks, today released global DDoS attack data derived from its ATLAS threat monitoring infrastructure. The data shows an unparalleled number of volumetric attacks in the first half of 2014 with over 100 attacks larger than 100GB/sec reported. 

ATLAS is a collaborative partnership with nearly 300 service provider customers who share anonymous traffic data with Arbor in order to deliver a comprehensive, aggregated view of global traffic and threats. ATLAS collects statistics that represent 90TB/sec of Internet traffic and provides the data for the Digital Attack Map, a visualization of global attack traffic created in collaboration with Google Ideas.

1H 2014 ATLAS key findings:

* 1H 2014 saw the most volumetric DDoS attacks ever, with more than 100 events over 100GB/sec reported so far this year

* At the mid-point of 2014, 2x the number of events over 20GB/sec have been reported, as compared to all of 2013

* The largest reported attack in Q2 was 154.69GB/sec, down 101% from Q1 2014. This was an NTP reflection attack targeting a destination in Spain.

* NTP reflection attacks are still significant, but size and scope is down versus Q1 2014. Average NTP traffic volumes are falling back globally, but still not back to the levels of November 2013 (pre the start of NTP attack proliferation)

* Q2 2014 saw fewer very large attacks – with average attack size down by 47% compared to Q1 2014

“Following on from the storm of NTP reflection attacks in Q1 volumetric DDoS attacks continued to be a problem well into the second quarter, with an unprecedented 100 attacks over 100GB/sec reported so far this year. We’ve also already seen more than twice the number of attacks over 20GB/sec than we saw in the whole of last year,” said Arbor Networks Director of Solutions Architects Darren Anstee. “The frequency of very large attacks continues to be an issue, and organizations should take an integrated, multi-layered approach to protection. Even organizations with significant amounts of Internet connectivity can now see that capacity exhausted relatively easily by the attacks that are going on out there."