BT Helps Create, Perform & Excel in Art of Connecting

BT today launched a global campaign and new offers designed to encourage large organisations to use technology more creatively for stunning business outcomes. Recognising the changing role of CIOs - and in tune with influential industry analyst views - BT Global Services will engage with leading global companies and government organisations all around the world to offer innovations addressing four key customer requirements: delivering a great performance, realising possibilities in the cloud, working in harmony and performing anywhere.

In order to deliver a great performance, global organisations need to manage a mix of different network technologies - combined with applications performance management and security services. The optimal architecture for handling that complexity is the “intelligent hybrid network”. BT is launching a range of offers focused on its IP Connect service, bringing coherence to hybrid networks and addressing issues such as availability, performance, economics and security. The first offers launched today include application-aware network performance monitoring as standard for larger global network contracts and trials for 100 Mbps internet access as part of IP Connect Global for enterprise customers.

To realise possibilities in the cloud, customers require improved performance and availability of multiple cloud-based applications. They connect to different cloud providers and at the same time data in the cloud has to remain secure at all times. To help CIOs orchestrate their cloud resources, BT has just launched ExpressRoute with IP Connect, allowing customers to bypass the public internet when connecting to the Microsoft Azure cloud. BT is also launching today a special trial offer for its Cloud Compute customers with connectivity to the BT cloud via its IP Connect Global network.

For an organisation to work in harmony, collaboration must happen at any time, on any device. To create such an environment, the CIO needs to rely on a network that can cope with the new wave of communications, providing top-of-the-range collaboration tools. Reinforcing its collaboration portfolio, BT is launching today a number of offers that bring the latest unified communications services to its customers at very competitive conditions”.

In order to perform anywhere, organisations deploy great mobility applications on a vast array of devices. The CIO needs to focus on the things that count: It’s not the device that’s important, it’s the data. BT delivers data and applications on the move by connecting to wireless access points, wi-fi hotspots and the mobile network so users enjoy a seamless experience. The latest security technology ensures that both data and devices remain secured at all times, regardless of where or how they are accessed or used. Reinforcing its mobility offering, BT is launching a new solution connecting employees’ devices to the corporate network securely, and delivering the benefits of mobile working with minimal capital outlay and a flexible pricing model. BT is also proposing special offers, including trials and special discounts, for mobile device management and mobile application management. Additional services and offers aimed at helping customers perform anywhere will be launched throughout the campaign.

Luis Alvarez, chief executive BT Global Services, said: “Harnessing the possibilities in today’s world takes creativity and innovation. Today’s connected world offers unlimited possibilities to our customers to make creative connections leading to real business outcomes. Exploiting the potential of our portfolio and leveraging our BT Advise team of professional services specialists, we are committed to enable our customers to orchestrate intelligent hybrid networks with a high level of security, while maximising the performance, flexibility and control offered by the cloud. Our offers also cover services that provide great collaboration experiences as well as graceful, seamless mobility. All our efforts this year are designed to help our customers become masters at the art of connecting.”

GoDaddy Enables Suvidhaa For Payment & Remittances

GoDaddy, the world’s largest technology provider dedicated to small businesses, today announced Suvidhaa, a Suvidhaa Infoserve Pvt. Ltd. (SIPL) franchise, has purchased Suvidhaa.com as a key part of its global expansion. The payment company allows customers to pay cash for necessary bills and services such as travel, utilities and entertainment at convenient locations including grocery stores, pharmacies and cyber cafes. More than 18 million customers have used Suvidhaa to pay bills at these locations often without even realizing it was Suvidhaa that made it possible. 

The company’s objective is to empower consumers to pay bills and manage transactions online. With its well-established market presence in India, the top-level domain Suvidhaa.com and GoDaddy’s commitment to quick and collaborative customer care is helping to facilitate the company’s international expansion. After experiencing GoDaddy’s remarkable support, customer care and efficient premium domain purchasing process, SIPL has registered 80 other domains with GoDaddy.

“We wanted to take our business global and start international remittance services,” said Paresh Rajde founder and chairman of SIPL. “GoDaddy was our preferred choice of partner to facilitate our registration of Suvidhaa.com and they made our experience of searching for a premium domain easy. GoDaddy folks went out of their way to help us. I am extremely satisfied.”

“We help our customers build successful businesses by understanding their needs and overcoming any challenges they may face,” said GoDaddy India Vice President and Managing Director Rajiv Sodhi. “We want our consumers’ purchasing experience to be easy and simple. “We not only worked with Suvidhaa to buy and register the premium domain name - ‘Suvidhaa.com’, but the company also went onto registering eighty more domain names with us after that. That’s a testament to GoDaddy’s products and our commitment to 24/7 local customer care.”

GoDaddy works with small businesses across the world to help them establish and build beautiful digital identities, enabling them to reach customers globally and run their business 24/7. In India, the company offers its world-class and award-winning customer care with local Indian representatives, to help small businesses understand and build professional websites.

ITechLaw Appoints Sajai Singh As First Asian President

J. Sagar Associates (JSA) announces the appointment of its Partner - Sajai Singh as the first Asian President of the International Technology Law Association (ITechLaw) headquartered in Massachusetts, USA.

Having been associated with the ITechLaw’s Executive Committee since 2010, Singh has donned various roles within this global body including serving as its Vice President, Treasurer & Secretary in the past.

A leading lawyer, Singh has worked at JSA for the past twenty two years and currently serves as the Chair of the Corporate Commercial practice, and also leads the TMT practice. During his tenure, he has undertaken transactional work with a focus on representing emerging Technology companies in areas of Inbound Investments in India, Venture Capital, Private Equity investments, Joint Ventures, strategic alliances, and Mergers & Acquisitions. He has represented clients across industries such as Media, Communication, Entertainment & BPOs; and has assisted many international businesses and funds to funnel investments into India. He also serves on the Technology Committee of IBA (International Bar Association). He is very active with ABA (American Bar Association) globally, and is often called to speak at international events.

Speaking on his appointment as President of I-Tech Law - Sajai Singh, Partner, JSA said, "It is an honor to be not only the first Indian but Asian to be elected by the I-Tech Law Association to lead this influential organization. In my new role, I look forward to working with this global network of technology law practitioners to leverage I-Tech law as a platform to grow and strengthen laws in information and communications technology. This is an important area especially for emerging economies like India where privacy laws are not so defined and empowering as compared to European and American nations.”

For his year ahead as President, Singh has set some ambitions goals for himself. These include providing a thurst to the membership of the association, including encouraging young tech and IP lawyers to join this prestigious organization. Giving back to the profession by conducting intensive workshops, called CyberSpaceCamps in developing nations, something he has been included in for a while.

Congratulating Singh on the appointment, Berjis Desai, Senior Partner, JSA said, “We are proud to see Sajai become the President of the I-Tech Law. Over the last two decades, Sajai has played an instrumental role in the growth of the firm’s technology law practice and has a wealth of knowledge and experience in the area. His appointment is a testimony to his area expertise and efforts over the years. We wish him all the best in his new role.”

I-Tech Law has been serving the technology law community worldwide since 1971 and is one of the most widely established and largest associations of its kind. It has a global membership base representing six continents and spanning more than 60 countries. Its members and officials reflect a broad spectrum of expertise in the technology law field.

Technocrats Fail To Crack Modi's Wave?

Entry of technocrats and industry torchbearers like Nandan Nilekani and V Balakrishnan into Indian politics was touted as a game changer but all of them tasted defeat at the hustings, swept away by the Modi wave.

Former Infosys executives Nilekani and Balakrishnan fought their maiden elections for different parties from the city which houses their former company's headquarters.

Nilekani, who was the richest candidate in fray for the 16th Lok Sabha, fought on Congress ticket from Bangalore South while Balakrishnan joined the fledgling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

Banker Meera Sanyal, who had unsuccessfully fought the 2009 Lok Sabha elections as an independent, entered the fray this year on AAP ticket from South Mumbai constituency. She finished fourth behind Shiv Sena's Arvind Sawant, Milind Deora of Congress and Bala Nandgaonkar of MNS.

In 2009, she had lost to Deora.

As the Modi juggernaut rolled, Nilekani lost to former Union Minister and BJP candidate Ananth Kumar.

From Bangalore Central constituency and former Infosys board member Balakrishnan finished a poor third behind BJP's P C Mohan and Congress' Rizwan Arshad.

Interestingly, both men conceded defeat even before the poll results were officially announced.

"I concede defeat and congratulate Ananth Kumar for his performance in this poll. I will continue to work more for the city and the Congress party," Nilekani told this news wire agency.

Asked when what went wrong for him, he said he was happy with the campaign he ran and the way his supporters and Congress leaders work along with him on the campaign.

"We have done our best and I remain happy with my decision to stand for election," he said.

Bala too said AAP had run an honest campaign and it was the people's decision, who voted for stability at the centre, "I will help them with upcoming Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) elections, we are preparing Mission 2015 for that; there is one more year, will try to strengthen the party further by then," said Bala, as he is popularly known.

Source: Agencies

Ajilon & ITC Infotech Offer Offshore Technologies

Ajilon, one of Australia’s largest resourcing, business and technology companies, has partnered with ITC Infotech, a global IT services company, to jointly offer Australian clients deep domain and technology expertise coupled with a robust global delivery model in the oil and gas, mining and logistics, public sector, energy and commercial sectors.

Ajilon and ITC Infotech will collaborate to offer a number of business and IT services including Business Analytics, Mobility, Custom Application Development and Application Managed Services, as well as providing Business and IT Services with some of the world’s leading software providers such as SAP and Microsoft.

With over 6000 employees, ITC Infotech combines business consulting, deep technical expertise and offshore delivery capability to provide technology solutions to customers across US, Europe, Middle East and APAC.

The partnership has already secured a new project win due to commence in July.

Managing Director at Ajilon, Ger Doyle, said "We are delighted to commence our strategic offshore contract with ITC Infotech whose expertise and innovation offers our clients best of breed services, scalability, and access to world leading talent.

“We believe Ajilon’s outstanding local capability and delivery pedigree, combined with ITCInfotech’s excellent off shore capability will make an extremely attractive value proposition to the Australian market.We have already won our first client project in association with ITC Infotech and we look forward to delivering world-leading solutions to Australia with our new partner”.

Commenting on the partnership, Ajeeth Jagannath, Senior Vice President – APAC, ITC Infotech said, “We are very excited with this partnership. We see two complementary organizations with similar value systems coming together to provide a rich set of technology service capabilities combined with a global delivery model”.

CODESS Community To Propel Woman Coders In India

CODESS, a community for women coders established by Skype in March 2013 to explore ways to promote gender diversity in the engineering field, was brought to India today by Microsoft. Around 30 women with 2-8 years of experience in development, testing and project management from various companies attended the event at Microsoft’s development center in Bangalore.

CODESS India is one in a series of CODESS events worldwide. For a long time, engineering has been perceived as a male dominated industry, with women active in these areas often treated as exceptions. Things are slowly changing, with more and more women now choosing careers in engineering. The mission of CODESS is to provide a platform for women coders to  share personal and professional experiences, network, and learn from one another. The CODESS team delivers events and workshops for female software engineers from academia all the way through to the executive level. With previous events across Eastern and Western Europe, Asia and the US, CODESS is now making its way across the different engineering communities throughout the world, and its first India stop was at Bangalore today.

Themed The Future of Work and Play, CODESS India, which was organized by WinSpire, the women’s networking team at Microsoft India Development Center in Bangalore, provided the attendees the opportunity to learn about future technology trends from Microsoft leaders and external speakers, attend a special session on game development conducted by a Microsoft team from the UK and watch some cool demos. The by-invitation only event, which started at 11am and closed at 4pm today, also gave the attendees the opportunity to meet experienced and like-minded female engineers from within the software industry. 

“At Microsoft, diversity is at the core of our culture. Emphasis on diversity and inclusion enables us to build a workforce and create a work environment that fosters talent and creativity and welcomes different experiences, perspectives, and capabilities. Gender diversity is a key component of that, with several initiatives in place focused on advancing it. India is one of our largest R&D centers outside Redmond. The R&D workforce in India is 2200 plus, and we have taken up several D&I initiatives to achieve a balanced workforce. Leadership commitment and environment sensitization to D&I, networks for women, Springboard, Digigirlz are just some of these programs,” said Vikram Manocha, Head of HR, Microsoft India (R&D) Pvt Ltd.  

Elaborating on CODESS, Manocha said: “CODESS is unique in that it focuses only on women coders. The objective is to create a forum for these women that provides them with mentoring, networking and any other support they need to further their technical careers. We want everyone to feel like they can reach out and have a candid conversation with other women in technology who may have interesting perspectives based on their experience. I am extremely fortunate to be here today, at the first ever CODESS event here today.”

In her session titled Reflections, Kalpana Margabandhu, Director, India CIO Lab and BT/IT Location Executive, IBM India, shared some learnings from her 32-year technology career. She stressed the importance of personal integrity and the ability to decide early on in life what is important to a woman, so that she can make appropriate choices and pace her career accordingly. Self-awareness and constant learning from experiences help a person grow in her desired direction, she said. Kalpana believes events like Codess are very important for women to be able to discuss, talk about their unique challenges and find solutions. Even in the case of innovation, there is always this inherent fear of not knowing what to do but when paired with someone else, increased confidence can help you do a much better job, she said.

Sharing her own learnings, Pragati Ogal Rai, Chief Technology Evangelist, Paypal, said that women must learn to be assertive and ask for what they want, as leadership appreciates and respects people who know what they want and have the confidence to ask for it. Open and direct communication is the right way to do this, she said. She also stressed the importance of being open to change and trying out new ideas as a woman progresses in her career.

Wireless 5G From National Instruments & Nokia

NI today announced that it’s working with Nokia’s Networks business to collaborate on advanced research related to fifth generation (5G) wireless technologies such as exploring peak data rates and cell-edge rates in excess of 10 Gbps and 100 Mbps, respectively.

By using NI’s integrated hardware and software baseband platform, Nokia plans to expedite its research and rapidly demonstrate the viability of high-frequency millimeter wave as an option for 5G radio access technology. “Our experimental 5G Proof-of-Concept system will be implemented using NI’s LabVIEW and PXI baseband modules, which is the state-of-art experimental system for rapid prototyping of 5G air interface available today,” said Lauri Oksanen, vice president of research and technology at Nokia.

“We are thrilled to work with Nokia on this project and others involving wireless research,” said Eric Starkloff, NI executive vice president of global sales and marketing. “Our software-defined platform based on LabVIEW and PXI is ideal for researching and prototyping standards such as 5G.”