World's Largest Global Intercloud From Cisco & Partners

As businesses increasingly embrace private, public, and hybrid clouds to cost-effectively and quickly deliver business applications and services, Cisco today announced plans to build the world’s largest global Intercloud – a network of clouds – together with a set of partners.  The Cisco global Intercloud is being architected for the Internet of Everything, with a distributed network and security architecture designed for high-value application workloads, real-time analytics, “near infinite” scalability and full compliance with local data sovereignty laws. The first-of-its-kind open Intercloud, which will feature APIs for rapid application development, will deliver a new enterprise-class portfolio of cloud IT services for businesses, service providers and resellers.

Cisco expects to invest over $1 billion to build its expanded cloud business over the next two years.  Its partner-centric business model, which enables partner capabilities and investments, is expected to generate a rapid acceleration of additional investment to drive the global scale and breadth of services that Cisco plans to deliver to its customers. 

The company plans to deliver Cisco Cloud Services with and through Cisco partners.  The following organizations, which are either planning to deliver Cisco Cloud Services or have endorsed Cisco’s global Intercloud initiative, represent a sampling of the kinds of global partners Cisco expects to work with to build its cloud business: leading Australian service provider Telstra; Canadian business communications provider Allstream; European cloud company Canopy, an Atos company; cloud services aggregator, provider and wholesale technology distributor Ingram Micro Inc.; global IT and managed services provider Logicalis Group; global provider of enterprise software platforms for business intelligence, mobile intelligence, and network applications MicroStrategy, Inc.; enterprise data center IT solutions provider OnX Managed Services; information availability services provider SunGard Availability Services; and leading global IT, consulting and outsourcing company Wipro Ltd.

“Customers, providers and channel partners alike are turning to Cisco to create open and highly secure hybrid cloud environments, and they want to rapidly deploy valuable enterprise-class cloud experiences for key customers – all while mitigating the risk of capital investment,” said Robert Lloyd, president of development and sales, Cisco. “The timing is right for Cisco and its partners to invest in a groundbreaking, application-centric global Intercloud to provide broader reach and faster time to market. Together, we have the capability to enable a seamless world of many clouds in which our customers have the choice to enable the right, highly secure cloud for the right workload, while creating strategic advantages for rapid innovation, and ultimately, business growth.”

Accelerating the Internet of Everything

Hosted across a global network of Cisco and partner data centers, the Cisco global Intercloud will offer an expanded suite of value-added application- and network-centric cloud services to accelerate the Internet of Everything.

The networked connection of people, data, processes and things, dubbed the Internet of Everything, is expected to be a $19 trillion economic opportunity in the coming decade.  The Internet of Everything movement, which is creating an entirely new set of requirements for globally distributed and highly secure clouds, has empowered Cisco and its partners to initiate the development of a massively scalable, flexible and highly secure Intercloud to deliver the mobile, collaborative and rich video cloud services that enable today’s new connected experiences.

The Cisco OpenStack-enabled Intercloud is designed to allow organizations and users to combine and move workloads – including data and applications – across different public or private clouds as needed, easily and securely, while maintaining associated network and security policies. It will also utilize Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) to optimize application performance and to make rolling out new services much faster. Cisco will improve application security, compliance, auditing and mobility by using ACI’s centralized, programmable security policy to enable fine-grained control and isolation at scale; suitable for private and public cloud environments.

Tips To Migrate Windows XP To Windows 7

Microsoft’s support for Windows XP systems is going to end on April 8, 2014 and it is estimated that 16 percent of the 4 million units of Microsoft PC install base for large enterprises in India are yet to migrate to Windows 7.  The cause of concern for many XP users remain that once Microsoft stops releasing XP updates and support, the operating system will become vulnerable to malware, viruses and hackers. Moreover, migration of Windows XP require a good amount of time and money.

But there is a cost-effective, time saving solution that Novell promises to the end users.

With Novell ZENworks, one can migrate quickly and easily to Windows 7—without disrupting user productivity or breaking the IT bank. It includes products that span the entire migration lifecycle—Assess, Optimize, Migrate, Patch and Maintain—and facilitates smooth, "near-zero touch" migrations. Make Novell ZENworks your preferred Windows 7 migration tool, and see how easy we make it, every step of the way.

* OPTIMIZE

One of the key issues you'll face during a Windows XP to Windows 7 migration is making sure that your users have the applications they need before, during and after the migration. By virtualizing all your Windows applications with Novell ZENworks Application Virtualization, you can keep your workforce productive at all times. Deploy new apps with no conflicts and zero installation times, and let users take them wherever they go!

* MIGRATE

Once you have identified your Windows 7 opportunities, how do you make the move quickly, automatically and cost-effectively? Loaded with powerful imaging and personality migration capabilities, Novell ZENworks Configuration Management facilitates Windows 7 migrations while preserving desktop and application settings and minimizing the business disruptions that normally accompany major OS upgrades. If you're still using ZENworks 7, make the move to Windows 7 with Novell ZENworks 11.

* PATCH

Once you have successfully migrated to Windows 7, Novell ZENworks Patch Management defends your endpoints from the devastating cost of viruses without burdening your IT staff. It offers efficient security patch management that keeps your endpoints safe without all the overhead.

* MAINTAIN

Finally, improve the quality and efficiency of your IT services with Novell Service Desk. It'll keep your IT ecosystem humming while maintaining SLAs and facilitating ITIL best practices throughout the migration process.

Mindtree & Pegasystems To Focus On BPM Development

Mindtree, a global technology solutions company has announced a strategic alliance with Pegasystems a leader in Business Process Management (BPM), to develop and optimize custom BPM solutions. The solutions will be based on Pegasystems’ Build for Change technology platform.

“Customers want a solution that leverages BPM platforms across multiple lines of business,” said Paul Gottsegen, Senior VP, Chief Marketing & Strategy Officer at Mindtree.  “Our broad alliance with Pegasystems helps our clients accelerate their efforts to create a more streamlined organization.”

“Mindtree shares our vision of providing clients with innovative solutions that solve a broad spectrum of challenges that today’s businesses face on the path to becoming digital enterprises,” said John Barone, VP, Global Strategic Alliances at Pegasystems.  “We look forward working together to meet the needs of our clients with Better Business Software and services that enable them to transform their businesses and embrace the power to better engage with customers, simplify operations, and adapt to change.”

Mindtree’s EAI / BPM center of excellence conceptualizes and incubates key solutions that provide clients with better performance and high quality processes at reduced costs. Through a consulting-led approach, technology expertise and proven methodology, Mindtree delivers large-scale EAI/BPM transformation.

New Wi-Fi Datacard Offers Connectivity For 10 Devices

Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider has announced the launch of seven new Wi-Fi open data cards to enable users to share more content on the go at blazing fast speeds. The new Wi-Fi datacard range is designed to suit the needs of Indian consumers for high-speed data consumption across multiple devices, share internet with friends & families from the same datacard and the freedom to choose their favorite network operator. The new open Wi-Fi data cards have been classified into three different categories to simplify data card purchase by consumers & help retailers sell easily.

Huawei Device India President, Victor Shanxin said, “Our understanding of the Indian consumer and the ability to serve them with superior innovation, enabling high-speed connectivity has led to our leadership position in the Indian Data Card market. With the rising penetration of internet-enabled devices like Wi-Fi tablets, laptops, smart TV’s, smartphones, connected gaming & music devices, people are increasingly consuming internet for entertainment & productivity at home and while traveling. We have an intuitive understanding of users’ need to connect, share, anytime anywhere, which has inspired us to design Wi-Fi data cards that can connect users irrespective of the device they use to access the web.” 

Commenting at the launch, Anand Narang, Marketing Director, Huawei India said, “With feedback from trade partners and consumers, we have simplified the naming structure to make the purchase & selling process easier at retail points with our new naming classification of data cards - Laptopi-Fi, Power-Fi and Mobi-Fi. Our new campaign ‘Internet pooling is here’ is targeted towards educating youth, young professionals & families about easy and affordable ways to access internet on multiple devices & share it with multiple devices simultaneously. Indian users are consuming lot of content on the go like in cars, hotels, at homes & offices on a variety of internet-connected devices. We have now empowered these value-conscious consumers to create a Wi-Fi anywhere and share internet with upto 5-10 devices of friends & family members in a cost-effective way.”

Turn your laptop into a hotspot with Huawei’s Laptopi-Fi data cards

Last year, PC sales in India witnessed a 4.8 per cent growth annually, with 11.5 million units, indicating that laptops are still the most sought after devices to access web especially from research & content creation perspective. Understanding the wide usage of laptops to surf the web by professionals, Small Office Home Office (SOHO) and large families, Huawei has launched two new Wi-Fi data cards under its Laptopi-Fi category. Huawei Laptopi-Fi datacards allow users to turn their laptop into an internet hotspot for upto 5 devices. These Wi-Fi datacards include E303FH and E3531. These dongles also allow users to make voice calls and SMS. E303FH and E3531 provide a download speed of 14.4Mbps and 21.6 Mbps respectively and an upload speed of 5.76Mbps that enable users to share data at a high-speed. 

Its now easy to convert your car, room and small office into a Wi-Fi zone with Huawei’s Power-Fi data cards

Under this Power-Fi category, Huawei has launched two devices E8231 and E8221 which come with in-built Wi-Fi module and require a power source connectivity like a car charging point, power mains or laptops to create a Wi-Fi hotspot. Both the devices can connect up to 10 devices at a time. E8231 allow users to download at a speed of 21.6 Mbps and E8221 enables users to download at a speed of 14.4 Mbps and upload speeds of 5.76 Mbps.

Be on the go, with Huawei’s new range of premium Mobi-Fi

With Huawei’s newly launched Mobi-Fi devices- E5220, E5151 and E5730, users can enjoy the freedom to take the internet wherever they go. With one touch Wi-Fi hotspot creation capability, all the three Wi-Fi routers can connect up to 10 devices instantly. The device offers blazing fast 21.6 Mbps download speeds. E5220, E5151 and E5730 are powered with a 1150mAh, 1500mAh and a 5200mAh battery respectively to provide long working time without connecting to a power source. Both E5151 and E5730 assist users to access internet via 3G/2G network or through Ethernet port seamlessly & effortlessly. Ethernet port also allows users to carry it around and use it as a portable router and when back home or in office, it could get connected with the Ethernet cable to function as a stationary router, offering wireless signal. With a 5200mAh battery, E5730 is a power bank and lets users charge their tablets and smartphones as well.

The new range of data cards will be available at leading multi-brand stores, e-commerce and IT, mobile & consumer electronics channel across India. The Wi-Fi datacards’ MRP prices are:

* Mobi-Fi : E5220 – Rs 4299, E5151 – Rs. 4999 

* Power-Fi : E8221 – Rs. 2499 and E8231 - Rs. 2999

* Laptopi-Fi : E303FH- Rs. 1899 and E3531 – Rs. 1999

Mobile Experience Gets Better As Micromax, MediaTek & Aircel Partner

In pursuit to strengthen the mobile eco-system in India, Micromax, a smartphone manufacturer has announced a strategic partnership with MediaTek, the leading chipset manufacturer and Aircel, one of India’s leading telecom players. Aimed at offering the best out of the box experiences for the Indian users, the partnership will see a unique amalgamation of the expertise of the three companies. While Aircel will offer one stop solutions to address the increasing data demands, MediaTek along-with Micromax’s expertise in product design and performance will redefine the user experience creating a win-win ecosystem for the Indian users.

Under this unique alliance, Aircel will team up with Micromax to introduce a range of offers for the consumers which will be almost equivalent to cost of the device. Powered by MediaTek chipsets, the devices promise to deliver a seamless and a powerful user experience, while the bundled Aircel offers will drive data growth in the country. The offers initially will be available across 4 Micromax devices – MMX 377G, Funbook Mini 410i, A090 and X070. The co-developed smart devices by the three pioneers will deliver seamless experience for the consumers, driving enhanced performance and data experience for customers across the country.

Commenting on the partnership, Vikas Jain, Co-founder, Micromax, said, “At Micromax, we have constantly strived to democratize technologies for the masses by bringing alive unique and customized products and offerings for our consumers.  Entering a new phase, our focus is now to provide seamless solutions to the consumers using their smart devices, thereby concentrating a large chunk of our efforts on coming up with products and services which act as solutions to the needs of the fast-evolving consumers. This partnership exemplifies the same endeavor, and we are very delighted to pioneer with MediaTek and Aircel, two pioneers in their own respective domains. 

While MediaTek supports us with the hardware, Aircel offers customized offerings for consumers to get a complete, affordable and seamless data experience across the country”

Sharing his thoughts on the partnership, Anupam Vasudev, Chief Marketing Officer, Aircel, said, “While there are many factors driving internet adoption in India; one key factor is the evolution of devices such as smart phones and tablets. Today’s youth are well informed on the data consumption patterns and therefore smart devices becomes an integrated tool to propel consumption of videos, social TV, HD gaming, content on demand etc. Keeping in line with consumer’s needs and demands, Aircel is bullish on device tie ups. We are delighted to continue our successful partnership with Micromax to offer exciting bundled benefits of their newly launched smart devices.” 

He further added, “According to a study, the number of telecom subscribers in India accessing the internet through mobile devices is increasing and will reach 350 million by 2015. This clearly indicates that mobile devices and data connectivity is undoubtedly the future of mobile telephony.”

Aircel has launched bundled offers with Micromax devices which will give customers exciting benefits worth more than Rs. 10,000:

Speaking at the occasion, Dr. Finbarr Moynihan, General Manager - Business Development at MediaTek, said, “For the first time, this unique tri-partnership between MediaTek, Micromax and Aircel provides the end-consumers both unparalleled benefits as well as unparalleled choice. Buyers do not only get benefits equivalent to the value of device they buy, but also a seamless and bundled value-add for data, voice and messaging across the entire product segmentation that includes dual-core smart phones, feature phones, 3G Tablets and 3G data card dongles. Hailing the beginning of the post-PC era, our MT6572, MT6260, MT8377 and MT6280 chipsets offer harmonized platforms to empower fast, powerful, smart and inclusive devices that cater to the emerging ‘super-mid’ market.”

The products will be available across the retail outlets across the country from April, 2014.

Polaris's De-merger Of Products Business Announced

Polaris Financial Technology Ltd, a leading firm in products, solutions and services that enable unprecedented operational productivity for the global Financial Services industry, announced the demerger of its Products (Intellect) business into an independent entity.

The company will be filing the Scheme of Demerger with the Stock Exchanges, SEBI and High Court as per extant regulations. After demerger and subject to approval from regulatory authorities and shareholders, the Product Company will be known as Intellect Design Arena Ltd (Intellect) and comprise of four distinct businesses : Global Universal Banking; Risk and Treasury Management; Global Transaction Banking and Insurance. Polaris Financial Technology Ltd (Polaris) will continue to run the Services Business with a strong vertical and solution focus.

As consideration for the Demerger (technically called a Vertical Split), every shareholder of Polaris Financial Technology Limited, will receive one share of Intellect. The Product business is significantly different from the Services stream, in terms of investments into product development, talent and sales & distribution. Given this, the Polaris  Board, taking into consideration the recommendations made by the Special Committee comprising of independent directors of the Board as well as the Audit Committee, has decided to offer a special option to the shareholders of Intellect to exchange the shares (should they wish to) allotted pursuant to the Demerger against fully secured non-convertible debentures (NCD). These NCDs shall have a face value of Rs.42 , with a coupon of 7.75% p.a., redeemable at par after 90 days.

The company announced the next phase of its growth journey, i.e., Polaris 4.0, as the culmination of its annual visioning exercise (Lakshya) in Jan 2012. Since then, the company has taken measured steps in four stages that led to the decision to de-merge. Stage 1 (January - June 2012) involved identifying major opportunities and the constraints in leveraging them. Stage 2 (July - December 2012), focussed on Strategy design, anchored by the Polaris Board and Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In Stage 3 (January - June 2013), a special Task Force was set up internally to work on the Change Design. Between July 2013 and January 2014 (Stage 4), the business of the company was re-organised into distinct Services and Products businesses, with independent CEOs.

Arun Jain, Executive Chairman, Polaris Financial Technology Ltd. said, “This is a decisive step towards unlocking the potential of the company to respond to emerging opportunities in Financial Technologies in the coming decade. In fact, it is a win-win for customers, employees and investors alike. From a customer perspective, this new structure aligns investments, competencies, decision making and processes to drive the next level of value creation. On one side, the customer will be able to enjoy deeper focus for his specific needs, say Services, while he would be able to accelerate his change-the-business agenda with truly next-gen Products.

From an employee perspective, alignment to their individual talent and interests will become a lot sharper, opening up clear streams for career advancement. From an investor perspective, on one hand, the shareholder will get an additional share of Intellect, a new horizon business. On the other hand, expanded leadership capacity, greater customer centricity and sharper focus will drive higher value in each of the Businesses. "

As announced at the time of restructuring, Jitin Goyal will continue as Chief Executive Officer of the Services business, and will be based in London. In the Products entity, Manish Maakan will continue as Chief Executive Officer of the Intellect Global Transaction Banking (iGTB) business operating out of London; Jaideep Billa and Venkatesh Srinivasan will continue to be Joint Chief Executive Officers of Intellect Global Universal Banking and Intellect Risk & Treasury business, operating out of Singapore and Mumbai respectively; and Pranav Pasricha will continue to be Chief Executive Officer of the Intellect Insurance product business, based in New York.

Polaris Holdings Pvt. Ltd., whose name has been changed to Polaris Banyan Holding Pvt. Ltd., will continue to be the promoter of both the companies. Both companies therefore will operate as Polaris Group Companies, each with its independent management team and Board of Directors.

83% Not Prepared For Online Security Incident

Arbor Networks, Inc., a leading provider of DDoS and advanced threat protection solutions for enterprise and service provider networks has announced the results of a survey it sponsored with the Economist Intelligence Unit on the issue of incident response preparedness. The Economist Intelligence Unit surveyed 360 senior business leaders, the majority of whom (73%) are C-level management or board members from across the world, with 31% based in North America, 36% in Europe and 29% in Asia-Pacific.

The report entitled “Cyber incident response: Are business leaders ready?” shows that despite 77 percent of companies suffering an incident in the past two years, over a third of firms (38 percent) still have no incident response plan in place should an incident occur. Only 17 percent of businesses globally are fully prepared for an online security incident.

More prepared firms that do have a response plan in place typically rely on the IT department to lead this process, but the majority also draw upon external resources – primarily IT forensic experts, specialist legal advisers and law enforcement experts.

“There is an encouraging trend towards formalizing corporate incident response preparations. But with the source and impact of threats becoming harder to predict, executives should make sure that incident response becomes an organizational reflex rather than just a plan pulled down off the shelf,” said James Chambers, a senior editor at The Economist Intelligence Unit.

Arbor Networks President Matthew Moynahan added, “As these findings show, when it comes to cyber-attacks, we live in a “when” not “if” world. In the wake of recent high profile targeted attacks in the retail sector, a company’s ability to quickly identify and classify and incident, and execute a response plan, is critical to not only protecting corporate assets and customer data, but the brand, reputation and bottom line of the company.”

Key findings:

Level of preparedness is being held back by lack of understanding about threats

*  Only 17 percent of business leaders feel fully prepared for an incident.

*   41 percent of business leaders feel a better understanding of potential threats would help them be better prepared.

*  Having a formal plan or team in place has a significant effect on feeling of preparedness among executives.

* Half of all companies feel that they are unable to predict the business impact when a breach occurs.

Emphasis on reputation is driving formalization of plans and processes

*  Two-thirds of executives say that responding effectively to an incident can enhance their firm’s reputation.

*   The percentage of organisations that now have an incident response team and plan in place is set to rise above 80 percent in the next few years.

*  Firms that have suffered an incident in the past 24 months are twice as likely to have an arrangement with a third party expert as firms that have not suffered an incident.

Firms remain reticent about disclosing incidents and sharing intelligence about threats

*   57 percent of organisations do not voluntarily report incidents where they are not legally required to do so.

*   Only a third of companies share information about incidents with other organisations to spread best practice and benchmark their own response.