N Chandrasekaran Named as New Chairman of Tata Sons; Rajesh Gopinathan to be New CEO of TCS

Tata Sons is likely to name a new chairman today; the board has called for a meeting, although it said no agenda for the meeting had been announced. Tata Sons had abruptly removed Cyrus Mistry as its Chairman on October 24 and sought his ouster from operating companies like Tata Motors and TCS. He had subsequently resigned from the board of six companies, but dragged Tata Sons and his interim successor Ratan Tata to the NCLT. CEO of TCS N Chandrasekaran has been widely speculated to be one of the leading contenders for the role. Sources said that the next chairman will be a well-known insider.

Rajesh Gopinathan New CEO of TCS

Rajesh Gopinathan is expected to be the new CEO of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), taking over from N Chandrasekaran who is likely to soon be announced the Tata Sons Chairman. Rajesh Gopinathan is currently the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of TCS. He will take over India’s largest IT firm and has big task at his hand to take forward the company.

So, who is Rajesh Gopinathan? He joined TCS in 2001 and was appointed the Chief Financial Officer in February 2013. Prior to becoming the CFO, Rajesh was the Vice President – Business Finance. According to TCS, in this role, he was responsible for the financial management of the company’s individual operating units. His responsibilities included financial planning and control as well as margin management and revenue assurance.

Agencies

MSMEs Skills Development Program By Boeing India, Jaivel Aerospace

Boeing in collaboration with Jaivel Aerospace has announced the launch of a skill development program to train front-line workers in micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the aerospace industry. In line with the national ‘Skill India’ initiative, the program aims at accelerating the growth of India’s aerospace industry by establishing a larger pipeline of skilled aerospace workers.

“This is Boeing’s first skill development initiative for aerospace manufacturing in Gujarat to ensure that entrepreneurial Gujarat businesses are ready to compete at a global scale,” said Pratyush Kumar, president, Boeing India. “We welcome Jaivel Aerospace to our skills development program. The partnership represents the commencement of our effort to expand our skilling initiatives to catalyse the aerospace industry in the state and help realize the ‘Make in India’ vision.”

Jaivel, a micro, small and medium enterprise, has undertaken work packages as a sub-tier supplier for Boeing’s advanced commercial airplanes such as the 787, 777 and 737 as well as defense platforms such as the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter. Through the new partnership, Jaivel’s role in the local and global aerospace sector will expand, as its helps to train future aerospace workers.

“As the world's largest aerospace company, Boeing offers the advantage of a tried and tested, unique curriculum and the knowhow to help an emerging aerospace enterprise like us to strengthen our global aerospace footprint,” said Vipul Vachhani, Founder and CEO – Jaivel Aerospace. “This is an important investment by Boeing, not only for us but also for Gujarat’s potential to become an aerospace manufacturing hub. This is testament to Jaivel’s aerospace team and we look forward to working with Boeing to create an excellent foundation for an aerospace sector in the state,” said Vipul Vachhani, founder and CEO, Jaivel Aerospace.

In addition, Boeing has been partnering with leading Indian vocational training institutes, Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and Indian partners, including MSMEs, to train workers in the aerospace industry. For example, Boeing-funded curricula and initiatives have already been launched with aerospace partners such as Rossell Techsys and Tata Advanced Materials Limited (TAML) to train workers on aerospace skills. Frontline workers have already been employed with Boeing’s suppliers after completion of training.

School Students Builds Multi-purpose Robot with NI System-Design Platform

Platform-based systems provider, National Instruments (NI) has mentored Anuj Verma and Shlok Jhawar, class VIII students of Delhi Public School, Bangalore in successfully creating a 4-wheeled, all-terrain, multi-purpose robot named, Recon Rover.

The Robot that can be used for surveillance during disasters and natural calamities incorporates data from various actuators and sensors in order to give the users the best control and accurate data from areas struck by natural calamities. The robot uses ultrasonic sensors to automatically avoid obstacles and prevent crash along with sensing the presence of humans stuck in disaster zones. It sends real time images and data from the disaster site while being controlled remotely.

Anuj and Shlok are 14 years-old and want to pursue robotics and electronics engineering later in their careers. They had earlier participated in NIYantra, NI’s annual Student Design contest, with a simple prototype of their product. They were successful in getting noticed by NI experts and since then have been closely working with the team in shaping up their final product using NI LabVIEW (system design software) and NI myRIO (embedded hardware device for students).

National Instruments provides hardware and software platform that not only helps professional scientists and engineers to solve complex applications, but also these budding engineers to envisage and build systems having great social impact.

“National Instruments has equipped scientists and engineers, with tools that accelerate the development of smart measurement systems and embedded control systems. This mission of ours extends into education, to serve budding scientists and engineers with access to the same advanced tools and technologies. These technologies help students to quickly realize and validate, solutions to real-world problems,” said Aditi Chauhan, Marketing Manager – India , National Instruments.

According to Anuj Verma, “Even with advanced technology into play, rescue operations are often slow resulting in mass panic. The biggest challenge which rescue teams face is that of accessibility. When disaster strikes a place which is remote and hard to access, getting any information can be challenging. To address this issue, we created the Recon Rover, with a highly-advanced user interface which can be controlled very easily. NI provided us access to various NI tools required to make this product flexible and scalable. With NI’s help, we were able to solve various challenges which we faced in the product development stage.”

As a part of its Academic program, NI organizes an annual student design competition, NIYANTRA, where it mentors hundreds of students, equips them with NI hardware, software and guidance that is required for their projects. Some of these students are really motivated to take their idea to prototype. NI further makes this possible through its various initiatives aimed at enabling SMEs and future entrepreneurs with technology access, startup assistance and ecosystem support.

Agencies

Market Sees 3.7% Decline of Worldwide PC Shipment in 2016

Worldwide PC shipments totaled 72.6 million units in the fourth quarter of 2016, a 3.7 percent decline from the fourth quarter of 2015, according to preliminary results by Gartner, Inc. For the year, 2016 PC shipments totaled 269.7 million units, a 6.2 percent decline from 2015. PC shipments have declined annually since 2012.

"Stagnation in the PC market continued into the fourth quarter of 2016 as holiday sales were generally weak due to the fundamental change in PC buying behavior," said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. "The broad PC market has been static as technology improvements have not been sufficient to drive real market growth. There have been innovative form factors like 2-in-1s and thin and light notebooks, as well as technology improvements, such as longer battery life. This end of the market has grown fast, led by engaged PC users who put high priority on PCs. However, the market driven by PC enthusiasts is not big enough to drive overall market growth."

"There is the other side of the PC market, where PCs are infrequently used. Consumers in this segment have high dependency on smartphones, so they stretch PC life cycles longer. This side of the market is much bigger than the PC enthusiast segment; thus, steep declines in the infrequent PC user market offset the fast growth of the PC enthusiast market."

Kitagawa said that although the overall PC market will see stagnation, there are growth opportunities within the market, such as the engaged PC user market, the business market and gaming. However, these growth areas will not prevent the overall decline of the PC market, at least in the next year.

Four of the top six vendors experienced an increase in worldwide PC shipments in the fourth quarter of 2016. The top three vendors all increased their global market share in the fourth quarter. Lenovo maintained the No. 1 position, as the company experienced shipment increases in North America and EMEA, while Asia/Pacific and Japan continued to be challenging markets.

HP remained in the second position, and it has recorded three consecutive quarters of shipment growth. HP secured the top position in PC shipments in the U.S. and EMEA, growing faster than the regional averages.

Dell also registered three consecutive quarters of shipment growth in 4Q16. Dell continued to place PCs as a strategic business segment in commercial and consumer markets during 2016. Asus suffered the steepest decline among the top six vendors in the fourth quarter of 2016. Asus has been shifting its PC strategy more toward the high-end market, which will allow it to maintain better profit margins. Gartner analysts said the falling shipment volume could be the cause of this strategy shift.

In the U.S., PC shipments totaled 16.5 million units in the fourth quarter of 2016, a 1.3 percent decline from the fourth quarter of 2015. Five of the top six vendors in the U.S. PC market experienced a shipment increase in the fourth quarter of 2016. However, this was offset by a 20.9 percent decline in the Others category, and a 48.3 percent decline in shipments by Asus.

"Similar to low-key back to school sales in 3Q16, big sales events, such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday and holiday sales are no longer effective marketing opportunities for PCs since PC purchases are generally driven by a 'need,' rather than 'want,' motivation," Kitagawa said. "PCs are not a preferred gift item any longer, as consumers gravitate toward other consumer electronics, such as virtual personal assistant (VPA) speakers, virtual reality (VR) head-mounted devices, and wearables. Vendors and channels did not have high expectations for the holiday PC sales, so the marketing campaigns remained relatively quiet."

PC shipments in EMEA surpassed 21.9 million units in the fourth quarter of 2016, a 3.4 percent decline year over year. PC shipments to the consumer market were driven by good Black Friday sales in Western European countries, such as the U.K. and France, especially on traditional notebooks, ultramobile clamshells, the hybrid form factor and gaming PCs. Gartner's early estimates also show PC shipment growth in the business segment, led by Windows 10 deployments during the fourth quarter.

The Asia/Pacific PC market totaled 24.8 million units in the fourth quarter of 2016, a 3.9 percent decline from the fourth quarter of 2015. The PC market was affected by two major events. First, the demonetization of the Indian currency in India led to weaker-than-expected consumer PC demand. Second, the success of China's 11.11 (Singles Day on 11 November) online shopping event gave a boost to consumer notebook sales.

For the year, worldwide PC shipments totaled 269.7 million units in 2016 The shipment totals were at the same levels as shipments in 2007. Market consolidation escalated in 2016 as the top three vendors (Lenovo, HP and Dell) accounted for 54.7 percent of worldwide PC shipments in 2016, up from 51.5 percent in 2015.

ISRO’s Launch of 103 Satellites is to Maximise Capacity Not Set Record: Kiran Kumar

With less than a month left for the proposed launch of 103 satellites at one go, Indian Space Research Organisation today said its aim is to maximise capability with each launch and not set a record.

“We are not looking at it as a record or anything. We are just trying to maximise our capability with each launch and trying to utilise that launch for the ability it has got and get the maximum in return,” ISRO Chairman A S Kiran Kumar told reporters here.

Of the 103 satellites that ISRO’s workhorse PSLV-C37  is expected to carry, 100 are foreign.

“They are all actually a constellation, they are getting into a constellation of satellites providing observation of earth,” Kumar said in response to a query on the sidelines of Karnataka ICT Summit 2017.

The three Indian satellites are Cartosat-2 series, weighing 730 kg as primary payload, INS-IA and INS-1B,  weighing 30 kg.

An official from the space agency said it was earlier planned to launch 83 satellites in the last week of January, of which 80 were foreign, but with the addition of 20 more foreign satellites the launch was delayed by a week and would now take place in the first week of February.

Kumar also said ISRO was working on having more frequent launches and make use of each launch or maximise the capability of the launch vehicle itself.

“The next one is going to carry a number of satellites from various companies along with our own Cartosat-2 series satellite and immediately following that we have GSLV Mark III and Mark II…. In the first three months that’s what we are targeting, but beyond that we are trying to work for almost one launch a month,” he said.

“The prime driver for all of this is to increase the  capacity. Though we have the number of satellites in operation, we require many more for providing the necessary services that is needed,” he added.

After the success of the Mars mission, ISRO, which is currently conducting experiments for its second moon mission said another mission to Mars, Venus and Jupiter are on the horizon and studies are underway.

“As we are progressing, we need to look at long-term. So what we are looking beyond Chandrayan-2, for which we are already working on an approved programme,” Kumar said.

“Beyond that, Mars second mission and Venus mission are all on the horizon, we have to go through the various studies and then formulate, get the approval and move. Right now, they are all in the study phase,” he added.

ISRO is conducting tests for hazard avoidance for  Chandrayaan-2 as it lands at its facility in Challakere in  Chitradurga district of Karnataka, where simulated lunar  craters have been created to evaluate the performance of the  system.

The ISRO Chairman and French Space agency (CNES) President Jean-Yves Le Gall in the presence of visiting French Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Marc Ayrault had on Monday signed a partnership agreement in satellite launch technology.

To a question on the agreement, Kumar said “Currently we are working with them on Oceansat-3… And then we are working for a future payload, on an infrared imaging sensor.”

“We are also looking at possibilities of working with  them in various areas of future developments of satellites,  launch vehicles,” he added.

ISRO in the past had worked with CNES on sounding  rockets, SARAL satellites programme and had also launched  satellites for them.

Agencies

VMware Releases 2016 State of the Digital Workspace Report

VMware, Inc, a global leader in cloud infrastructure and business mobility, has introduced the 2016 State of the Digital Workspace Report, a global survey of business and IT decision makers, practitioners and influencers. The report unveiled that organizations taking a digital workspace first approach that aggregates devices, applications and services while securely managing them through unified common access and identity – experience business, operational, and financial benefits while those that wait are falling behind.

Respondents acknowledged that game-changing IT relies on organizations adopting a digital workspace that includes security and identity management as vital components. With realistic prospects of achieving astounding return on investment (ROI), even businesses that cited obstacles to adoption may want to consider taking another look at business mobility initiatives.

“As we enter 2017, the industry is moving into the next phase of enterprise mobility where businesses have to deliver access to applications and resources to end-users, customers and partners using any connected device in any location,” said Dave Grant, vice president, product marketing, End-User Computing, VMware. “The State of the Digital Workspace Report shows that business and IT leaders recognize the significant tangible benefits digital workspaces can offer to an organization. The guiding principle of consumer simple and enterprise secure applied to VMware’s digital workspace solution, VMware Workspace ONE, delivers a simple and secure platform that can help customers in any industry with their digital transformation journey.”

Triple Digit ROI and Significant Cost-Savings with Embrace of Digital Workspaces

·  ROI from business mobility investments averaged 150 percent overall.

·  41 percent of IT and business decision makers saw improvements in total management costs after successfully executing on digital workspace efforts

·  That said, only 30 percent of their non-executing peers realized improvements.

·  39 percent of decision-makers realized cost improvements to support end–users after embracing digital workspaces (compared to 23 percent among those that did not).

Businesses Can Introduce New Revenue Streams Faster

·  Nearly half of organizations (48 percent) that have successfully executed mobility initiatives saw improvements in their ability to more rapidly introduce new revenue streams, compared to 34 percent among organizations that have not executed a single initiative.

·  Among those organizations executing 10 or more business mobility initiatives, 52 percent saw improvements in their ability to more rapidly bring new revenue streams online.

·  Meanwhile, among the organizations executing fewer than five mobility initiatives, only 38 percent saw improvements. 

Executives View Digital Workspaces as Way to Address Top Concerns

·  Concerns about security were top of mind among executives and nearly half of executives (45 percent) viewed a digital workspace solution that includes the necessary elements of security and compliance tools, mobile device management software, and identity management as a way to address compliance and security risks.

·  In particular, 43 percent of financial services leaders pointed to identity management software as a necessary element in the financial services segment.

India-Portugal Partner to Boost Trade and Investment in the Future

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) along with FICCI and Assocham organized a Business Meeting with António Costa, Prime Minister of Portugal and his accompanying delegation in the city. The Business meeting aimed at boosting trade and investment between India and Portugal brought together Industry representatives and Industry bodies including FICCI and ASSOCHAM in an effort to fast track business relation between the two nations.

Assuring full support of his Government for Portuguese companies to export or invest in India and for Indian companies to come to Portugal. António Costa, Prime Minister Portugal said that, it is well known that Portugal and India have centuries old relationships based on historical cultural and personal ties but despite the old ties the commercial relationship between Portugal and India is still quite insignificant. Portugal export only 1200 million Euros a year to India and India exports only 500 million Euros to Portugal. Tourist flows and balance of service between the two countries is also very low. It is this situation that needs to change. The aim of my visit to India is to review and adapt our relationship to address both present and future challenges. We want to enhance our relationship and extend it to a strategic partnership with ambitious targets in new areas of cooperation.

India and Portugal have complementary economies and can take advantage of being part of different regions and markets. There are great opportunities that can be explored both in terms of trade and investment. Portugal has a long tradition of openness to foreigners and to foreign direct investment. The Portuguese government has been focusing in creating a better global framework for investment, putting investment at the heat of its strategy to foster growth. Portugal has a strategic position to access key markets, it is the nearest European country to the United States and Canada, it is a country in the same time zone as the United Kingdom and Ireland and it has high connectivity to African and Latin America. The goal of this seminar is to expose both business communities to opportunities that they can explore either in Portugal, in Indian or even in CPLP countries.

Manuel Caldeira Cabral, Minister of Economy Portugal said that  Portugal is a very open economy open for trade and Investment from different countries, it has a long history of building bridges and today Portugal is open to being the doorway for India to enter the European Union (EU) market. Portugal is also a platform for doing business with Portuguese speaking countries all-around the world particularly in Africa and Latin America. The country witnessed the highest growth rate in the EU in 2016, investment is recovering with a strong base of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), the country is inviting cooperation in sectors such as science and technology, Infrastructure, renewable energy, startups, agriculture and food processing, water and waste management, tourism, pharmaceuticals, automotive products and defense.

Ravi Raghavan, Chairman CII Karnataka, extended a warm welcome to the Prime Minister of Portugal. He said that there is a strong need for the two nations to build on their historical relationship and transform it into a 21^st Century technology driven business relationship. Portugal and India are very strong in industry verticals such as information technology, pharmaceuticals, automobiles, alternative energy, tourism, agro products, fisheries and a host of other sectors, and he called upon both countries to realize the full potential that a combined effort can bring about. He appreciated the support offered by Portugal in India’s bid for a permanent set at the UNSC.

Industry representatives including Shekar Viswanathan, Chairman FICCI Karnataka, R. Shivakumar, Chairman ASSOCHAM Karnataka, spoke on the need to strengthen business ties between Portugal and India.