Muthoot Finance Launches ‘Sunheri Soch’ Radio Campaign By Amitabh Bachchan

Muthoot Finance, India’s No.1 Most Trusted Financial Services Brand and India’s largest gold loan NBFC has entered into a unique partnership with RED FM, one of India’s largest and much awarded private radio networks to launch a series of real-life inspirational stories that break stigmas around gold loans in India. With ‘Muthoot Finance Sunheri Soch’ campaign, the financial services conglomerate brings highly successful stories of various common men & women who dreamt big and made their dreams come true by availing gold loans from Muthoot Finance.

Sunheri Soch aims at encouraging and educating masses about actively adopting gold loans and realising their dreams. The campaign is a series of inspiring, real-life stories of common people who took a gold loan from Muthoot Finance and moved ahead in life. Muthoot Finance’s brand ambassador Shri Amitabh Bachchan beautifully narrates these stories in an all-new avatar. As part of this campaign, a melodious Sunheri Soch anthem was launched with Red FM’s top RJs saluting the courage of these successful people who have achieved their dreams in highly challenging circumstances. Sunheri Soch is a celebration of their achievement, and Muthoot Finance is proud to be a catalyst in this journey of millions of Indians.

Commenting on the association, Mr. Alexander George Muthoot, Deputy Managing Director, The Muthoot Group said, “We have always launched path-breaking campaigns that have brought attitudinal transformation in the lives of people. Gold loans have huge potential as Indian households have 26000 tons of gold & just 2-3% of this is monetised by way of gold loans. We at Muthoot Finance are the guardians of trust who empower society to realise the power of their dreams by unlocking the true value of their emotional currency. Our Sunheri Soch campaign brings inspirational real-life stories to life to help common people realise their dreams”

Mr.Abhinav Iyer, General Manager, Marketing & Strategy, Muthoot Finance added, “Sunheri Soch is a series of life-transforming stories that can inspire a million others. As humans-beings, we feel inspired by great success stories. With a little help from Muthoot Finance, these are people who realised their dreams. With +2.5 Lac customers being served every day, it wasn’t easy to hand-pick a few success stories. Mr Bachchan’s incomparable voice and amazing delivery has just brought in the magical touch to this campaign”

Commenting on this association, Ms. Nisha Narayanan, COO & Director, Red FM and Magic FM said, “We are excited to announce our collaboration with Muthoot Finance, one of the most trusted financial services brand in India to feature inspirational success stories and break all the prevailing apprehensions associated with gold loans. With deeper engagement being the primary need of clients, we have taken a different approach in sharing some of the extraordinary real stories of Muthoot Finance Gold Loan customers”

Ms.Ruchi Mathur, Senior VP, Mindshare said:

“Magic happens when real life and storytelling come together. Especially in times like these when consumers and listeners are looking for something positive to latch on to. With this idea, we are not selling a brand or a product, but we are bringing hope to the many who have a dream, but just need the inspiration and a little help. We at Mindshare Content+ are proud to partner Muthoot Finance Sunheri Soch and hope this platform will bring the change we feel it can”,

About Muthoot Finance:

Muthoot Finance is the flagship company of The Muthoot Group which has 20 diversified business divisions. With 5000+ branches, the Group serves over 2.5 Lac customers every day. Muthoot Finance is also India's largest gold loan NBFC and India’s No.1 Most Trusted Financial Services Brand, according to the Brand Trusted Report. It is a reputed ‘Systemically Important Non-deposit taking NBFC’. As part of the core business, Muthoot Finance provides loans secured against household gold jewellery at highly affordable rates and amazing product features. Globally, the Group has presence across, USA, UK, UAE, Costa Rica and Sri Lanka. In the recently announced financial results for FY20, Muthoot Finance posted a record Net Profit of Rs. 3,168 Crores (a 50% growth over FY19). The Consolidated Assets Under Management (AUM) grew by 22% for the same period and stood at Rs. 46,800 Crores.

Watch TV anywhere with new Nokia mobile TV phones

Nokia has announced the launch of Nokia 5330 Mobile TV Edition, which will allow users to watch television anywhere. The phone is an entertainment hub that combines mobile broadcast TV (DVB-H), social networking, music and gaming in one compact 3G device. Nokia says that broadcast TV consumption is on the rise and by 2012 there will be over 300 million people worldwide watching TV on their mobile phones.

"The introduction of the Nokia 5330 Mobile TV Edition responds to the arrival of DVB-H broadcast mobile TV networks in new markets and offers an affordable device for new and existing customers alike. Customers are increasingly watching a variety of programmes on their mobiles, such as drama programs, news and sport, for a longer period of time. The Nokia 5330 Mobile TV Edition has the sound and image quality to hold audiences captive," said Mark Selby, Vice President, Nokia.

Nokia 5330 Mobile TV Edition's DVB-H technology allows programs to burst through the QVGA 2.4" screen in full-colour, crystal clear, sharp images. A user can set reminders for favorite shows and create personal channel lists with Nokia's Electronic Program Guide (EPG) for a good mobile broadcast TV experience.

The Nokia 5330 Mobile TV Edition provides broadcast picture quality while the headset acts as an antenna for outstanding reception. Long battery life gives up to six hours of DVB-H usage. "It is essential for DVB-H service providers to have a variety of devices capable of serving the mass market. Having a complete portfolio of handsets is pivotal for the commercial success of mobile TV. The new Nokia DVB-H enabled mobile phone, the Nokia 5330 Mobile TV Edition, is a great addition to the current portfolio of broadcast TV-capable handsets," said Franklin Selgert, Chairman, Broadcast Mobile Convergence Forum.

The Nokia 5330 Mobile TV Edition comes with all the latest social networking software, making it simple to stay in touch with friends via Ovi Contacts, Facebook, MySpace and YouTube. Post status updates for friends and family to follow or instant message (IM) them via Windows Live(TM) Messenger, Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger, ICQ, AOL and many others.

Users can capture photos and video clips, day or night, using the 3.2 megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom and LED flash before uploading and sharing favourite shots via sites such as OviShare and Flickr.

Nokia and Nokia Siemens Networks work with more than 30 operators worldwide on Mobile TV implementations. Commercial launches with Mobile TV services based on DVB-H and OMA BCAST standards include Austria, Finland, Ghana, Kenya, India, Italy, Namibia, Nigeria, Netherland, Philippines and Switzerland. Nokia 5330 Mobile TV Edition costs around Rs. 11,000 excluding taxes.

Agencies

Cisco, EMC, VMware join hands to take on IBM, HP

Technology heavyweights Cisco Systems and EMC Corp dampened speculation the two companies would merge as they announced on Tuesday a broad partnership to develop data centre technology, taking on rivals IBM and Hewlett-Packard. The two have spent three years developing technology and ironing out details of a deep partnership through which they will bundle Cisco’s networking equipment and server computers with EMC’s storage and virtualization technology.

Their goal is to become a top provider of data centre products as the industry switches to technology focused on providing socalled “cloud” computing services from central data centres that can be accessed over the internet and corporate networks.

As they announced that partnership, top executives from both companies suggested that persistent speculation Cisco plans to acquire EMC has been unfounded.EMC chief executive Joe Tucci said in an interview that the rumours may have been sparked as investors got wind of the close talks between the two companies that led to the partnership over the past few years.

Cisco CEO John Chambers said in the same interview, that “Our tendencies are to partner together. I think we do that remarkably well.” When specifically asked if he was interested in buying EMC, as investors have long speculated might be the case, Chambers said: “You buy big-tosmall. You partner big-to-big.”

The Wall Street Journal reported that the partnership will sell and provide maintenance and service support for a product called “V-Block,” combining EMC’s storage equipment, Cisco’s virtualized servers and networking gear and VMWare’s virtualization technology.

The partnership, the paper said, will have two components. It will be responsible for marketing and providing maintenance and support for V-Block. But the actual cloud infrastructure will be constructed by a coalition of the three companies.

The publication noted that technology giants had breached new markets, “turning once stalwart allies into competitors”.

The move by Cisco, EMC and VMWare, it said, comes amid a wave of consolidation among companies that provide hardware, software and services to corporate data centres.“Following the actions of IBM and HP to create one-stop IT shops, Dell announced in September it will purchase IT services firm Perot Systems. Software giant Oracle Corp, meanwhile, is awaiting European antitrust approval for its acquisition of Sun Microsystems,” The Journal said.

Agencies

Cisco to strenghten Web security with ScanSafe acquisition

Cisco Systems has announced to buy the privately held Web security company ScanSafe for about $183 million, a move that will intensify its battle with security giants Symantec and McAfee. ScanSafe sells Web-based services that protect business computer networks and PCs from hackers, saving companies the cost of buying and installing software on their own equipment.

The top two security software companies, Symantec and McAfee, already sell such products, which are known as "cloud" services and whose sales are growing at a far faster clip than traditional software. As reported by Reuters, Cisco announced the deal on Tuesday, saying that the transaction is expected to close in its fiscal second quarter that ends in January 2010. The $183 million price tag includes cash and retention-based incentives, as per Cisco.

The deal helps Cisco expand its security portfolio, which includes email and Web security software company IronPort that it bought in 2007. San Jose, California-based Cisco has recently stepped up its pace of acquisitions. It announced deals for wireless equipment maker Starent Networks for $2.9 billion and Norwegian video conferencing maker Tandberg for $3 billion. Chief Executive John Chambers has said that he was looking to do more.

Agencies

Is Koobface dangerous for networkers?

If you have been getting tempting messages with video links in your accounts in social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter,
IT Exploring Internet Explorer 8, Myspace, Bebo, Friendster and Hi5, beware. Any attempt to download the promised video will make you another victim of Koobface, a worm that could steal critical and personal information from your computer.

The government's India Computer Emergency Response Team has warned that Koobface, a play on the name of social networking site Facebook, comes with an enticing tagline and spreads by spamming the contacts of the victim on networking sites.

With more than 3 million members of Facebook alone in India, Koobface's potential for wreaking havoc on the country's computer systems is immense — a fact that has prompted the government to issue the warning alert.

Typically, Koobface victims get a message from one of their contacts inviting them to click on a video link. The link leads you to a site mimicking the video-sharing site, Youtube. Once there, you are asked whether you want to download a software needed to watch the video.

If you click `yes', the worm gets activated, leaving your computer vulnerable. The worm not only disrupts your internet experience by sending your searches on engines like Google elsewhere and return garbled replies, it also steals data that may have been left in your computer's memory.

If you do or have already been Koobfaced the only way to protect your machine is to delete all files and registry keys that have been added by the worm. Internet users have also been advised by the government agency to install and maintain updated anti-virus software in their computers, as also a desktop firewall, and block ports which are not required.

While you may not be able to notice the worm rummaging through your electronic files searching for personal data, including passwords, the visible signs of the worm would show up on your internet browsing where you would get abnormal results to your searches and be misdirected to other sites.

Agencies

Will Cisco layoff 6,600 employees?

Is it pinkslips time at Cisco? Predicting a significant drop in revenue for the fourth quarter, a JP Morgan analyst has reported that Cisco Systems Inc "could" soon announce a workforce reduction of 10 percent (this could be equal to about 6,600 employees).

In his 49-page first-quarter 2009 preview of communications equipment and networking companies, analyst, Ehud Gelblum, of JP Morgan wrote, "We expect Cisco to guide fourth fiscal quarter revenue down 17-22%, year over year, as demand continues to deteriorate, in-line with our estimate for a 21 per cent year over year decline," "We believe Cisco could also announce a 10% headcount reduction, which we calculate could save $900M annually," he wrote.

The recent lowering of sales projections by two of Cisco's competitor's Juniper Network and F5 Network has led to a similar speculation about the company.

Cisco spokesman reportedly refused to comment on JP Morgan report directly. However, in a statement he said that on our fiscal second quarter 2009 earnings call in February we discussed a limited restructuring where we could in the near term see a total reduction of between 1500 and 2000 jobs company wide. This does not represent a broad-scale layoff in our workforce.

The spokesman added that this limited restructuring is part of our ongoing, targeted realignment of resources. While Cisco constantly manages its business priorities, resources and overall employee alignment as part of our overall business management process, we are sensitive to the impact these decisions have on employees during this challenging economic environment. We are doing everything possible to minimize the impact on employees affected by the limited restructuring.

Indiatimes

Is Open Source Really Open?

Open source software in the traditional sense means software whose source code is freely available and modifiable. (Yes, we know there are versions of software that are only pseudo open source where the source is available, but not for free. Or the source code is available, but not modifiable, etc). In our opinion, most businesses should not, and will not, care if a software is open source. Even if they have control over the source code, they might not have the technical capability to solve a particular problem or implement a particular feature.

So, there will be certain software that will work 'out of the box' with the features you would want, while others like ERP, CRM or BI systems need to be highly customised as per the nature of business. However, you can hire talent to modify an open source software as per your requirements. For example, if you are using a popular PHP application, the source code is available and can be freely modified by in-house talent at a reasonable cost. This would entirely depend on the type of application and the expertise available including its price.

Understand your business requirements

The very first step that any business needs to figure out is what they plan to achieve by implementing a particular open-source solution. Ask yourself, "How will I make my work cheaper/faster/easier using this tool? What business objective will this tool facilitate?" For, every IT solution entails direct and indirect costs. For example, before you deploy any ERP, CRM or BI solution or migrate your existing solution, you should have clear and quantifiable objectives that should be met. Will this CRM software help me better understand and, in turn, serve my customers? Will this ERP solution help me reduce inventories? Will it facilitate better warehouse management? Will the BI solution help me gain more insights about my products and services that I don't already know? Is it worth the time, effort and price?

How do I facilitate the implementation?

If you have identified a unified communication solution or a ERP, CRM or a BI solution, you should know what features you would require the most. Do you require features like collaboration? How much control is required? What is the level of security that you would expect? You should evaluate all offerings (open source or not/paid or free) based on the above set of requirements. Next you must hunt for all possible offerings so that you can compare multiple solutions and their pros and cons.

Open source DOES NOT always mean free

It is a common misconception that open source software is free. While many software follow that norm, it is not a rule. You might have to spend on certain open source software. Also, there are training and support costs associated with open source software as well.

While it might not be very difficult to learn a shiny new open source browser, you cannot say the same about a content management or a ERP/CRM system. For example, for a particular open source software that is not popular, the availability of support will be lower and support costs will be higher as a general rule. Also, open-source projects such as Firefox, Thunderbird, Apache, etc are well-established. Using a well-established software ensures long-term support for the software in terms of features, bugs and security patches. There are a lot of open source software that started with a bang and lost steam over a period of time. Also, commercial and non-open source software may be good in terms of providing better support as those companies are legally required to do so. Also, you can install a low cost/free open source solution and buy support from many commercial vendors.

Conclusion

Having considered the above-mentioned points, perform an in-depth research before deciding on which solution to adopt.

CXOtoday

BA Systems eyes 10pc of Indian networking solutions market

BA Systems, the Bangalore-based router manufacturing company, headquartered in San Jose, California, has entered the router market and is aiming at a market share of 10 percent in the networking solutions space in India by 2009-10.

The company has launched 'Enterprise' category of routers with a contract manufacturer in India. Its USP is its price, which it claims is about 30-50 percent cheaper than competitors. B. Jagadish, director marketing, BA Systems, speaks about the company's entry into the Asian market and the growing market for Enterprise routers, in an interview with CIOL's Manu Sharma. Excerpts:

CIOL: Being a US company what made you roll out your products in India?
B. Jagadish: BA Systems is headquartered in San Jose and has presence in Bangalore, Singapore, Hong Kong and China. We are targeting the Asia-Pacific market since it is growing by many folds in the Enterprise segment of routers. India, in particular, has a big market and the router market is growing at 15-18 percent. In comparison, it is growing by only 5 percent in the developed countries. Therefore, we have launched our products here and plan to expand overseas through our OEM network. In fact, we have already sent our first shipments to China and Bangladesh.

CIOL: Describe the Enterprise router market and what is its estimated growth in India?
BJ: The Enterprise routers industry segment is presently estimated at $4 billion and is likely to grow at a CAGR of 30 percent to touch $10-billion by 2010. According to an IDC report, while Edge, PC based, wireless, ADSL, broadband, XDSL and core routers make up most of this industry, Enterprise is in lesser numbers, but is catching up.

CIOL: What are the routers that you have launched and what applications do those support?
BJ: The BA Systems' EN3500, and EN2400 integrated routers uniquely address key customer requirements such as reduction in CAPEX and OPEX, and the power to implement IP networking services with minimal disruption and maximum remote control from a central location. This is achieved by combining the high performance and carrier-grade reliability of the BA Systems Operating System (BOS) with a central management application -- a BA Systems Element and Services Management Supervisor (BESS).
The modular, multi-threaded design of BOS, in combination with the EN series high-performance hardware, provides for the best-in-class performance, both raw and with multiple services loaded.

CIOL: Who are your competitors in this segment?
BJ: Cisco Systems has a market share of over 90 percent, while Juniper Networks, Nortel, Tasman, Huawei and 3Com are the other major players in this segment. BA Systems has just made an entry into the market and hopes to capture a 10 percent market share by 2010.

CIOL: How do you plan to tackle your competitors?
BJ: The BA Systems' EN series represents the next generation of integrated routing platforms. The EN series is the first routing platform that leverages the combination of optimized hardware with tested, interoperable, and modular high-performance operating system –(BOS), thereby affording significant CAPEX savings.
BA Systems' products are deployed in mission-critical networks at high profile customers, including a leading national telco, banks, stockbrokers, MSPs and BPOs. BA Systems strategically partners with channels, including systems integrators and service providers to go-to-market. The company provides partners with level-3 technical support, training and feature customization for partners/customers.

CIOL: What kind of marketing and sales support does the company provide?
BJ: Our support base for the customers will be out of India. We have already started a toll-fee line that will be attended by us starting next January. Presently, we provide technical support to our customers that make it unique unlike others and have no plans to outsource the aftersales support. We provide technical support to our customers to handle them faster and understand their needs better. Presently, it is offered 12x5, and once the volumes build up, it will be 24x7. The company also has marketing offices in Bangalore, Chennai and Delhi. Besides, we will have full-fledged offices in Mumbai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad by October 2007.

CIOL: What sort of pricing models are you following for you products?
BJ: Our USP is our cost that is incomparable to any competitors even Cisco. Our solution comes at a cost that is at least 30 percent lower than close competitors Cisco, and can even be as less as 50 percent less if it is an end–to-end solution. Our hardware contributes a lot, while our software has own patent rights. We are the only router company with a local manufacturer. Neither Cisco, Juniper or anyone else has such a facility. Most of them source their products from either China or Taiwan.

CIOL: Who are your present customers and whom are you targeting?
BJ: Our products are affordable, off-the-shelf components. We started production in May 2006 and have already installed the products at the Taj Group, ITC, STPIs and co-operative banks. We also have corporate clients like Fortune Financials, Bosco Steel, BNA BPO and Divya Systems. The company will also be tapping into the railways, airlines, telecom and defence sectors in 2008 as they are all based on tenders.

CIOL: How is the feedback from your existing customers?
BJ: The feedback has been phenomenally good. It is because of our modular operating system, inherent features, rollback graceful restart, route tracking, SLA monitoring tool, etc. All of these are the major empowerments that our customers have experienced. We offer end-to-end solutions, including real-time WAN management. In fact, we have moved away from offering a product to a total solution.

Juniper expands R&D staff based in India

The company is planning to invest $400 million in next five years mainly for R&D activities and also add 300 more staff by mid 2008 in India.

Out of the total global strength of about 3,500 R&D workforce in Juniper Networks, close to 30 percent of the engineering workforce will be based in India doing research across all the product line. Now with India among the fastest-growing region in Asia pacific, the networking equipment major plans to invest $400 million in next five years in India mainly for R&D activities.

Talking to CIOL, Hitesh Sheth, executive vice-president & general manager of Ethernet Platform Business Group of Juniper Networks says, "India has the largest workforce for research & development globally and we are very bullish about it. Juniper has some major contribution from the R&D centre in Bangalore and plans to add 300 more R&D and operations staff by mid 2008 in India." In fact, since the strength of the team is expanding rapidly and will touch 1000 in India now, we are also expanding on our office premises here at the Bagmane Tech Park in Bangalore, he adds.

Juniper has major centers across the globe, headquartered in of San Jose, the company has other R&D centres in Westford in Massachusetts, Beijing, Canada, Israel and Bangalore, where the teams works in a matrix environment, says Sheth.

Lately the IT network infrastructure solution provider has increased its level of contribution towards evolution of global products for the company. In fact, the Bangalore R&D centre is engaged in developing networking platforms, routers and security products, switches and JNOS, the operating system. The centre has also developed fully-owned products.

Recently, Juniper unveiled its new high-performance network infrastructure offerings with a new family of Ethernet switches (EX series). "The team is now focused on completing the terabit-chassis EX switch, and further enhancing the fixed-configuration and virtual-chassis products. The Bangalore R&D team's contribution in the past and the recent success has prompted the company to hand over critical projects," he noted.

Narendra Venkaswamy, managing director of India & SAARC at Juniper Networks, Bangalore says, "the company will invest in research, engineering, switching products, security products. Globally our switching portfolio is largely focused here and we are also growing our sales team in Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi and other cities."

The company is focused on Internet protocol (IP) solutions market in India and it is expecting major market opportunities with telecom service providers rolling out their network infrastructure. Juniper India has around 1,250 employees and has invested $200 million in the last three years.

Juniper is also seeing major opportunity in the area of 3G equipment and infrastructure mainly routers, switches, WAN acceleration and security products to major service providers.
Reacting to the future of Juniper in India, Venkaswamy says the company has a $2.8 billion turnover for the year 2007 with Asia-Pacific contributing 23 percent. Besides telecom, Juniper India is also focusing on the segments of government, BFSI, IT and manufacturing.

"3G is one of the areas that has given us great growth in other parts of Asia. The future in 3G drives switching which drives routing and security. We are partnering with all major tier 1 service providers in India, who will be rolling out their 3G networks," says Sheth.