Laurels For JDA Soft At Puma Urban Stampede Race

JDA Software Group, Inc., the leading provider of Supply Chain Management solutions worldwide, announced that it has won yet again at the Puma Urban Stampede, held today at the Bhartiya City, Thanisandra Main Road Bangalore, organized by PUMA and Runners for Life.

The 2nd Runners Up prize was bagged by Pratibha Jose, Soundarya Singh, Reshma Deshpande, and Nikita Mokhariwale at the 4 X 5km corporate relay race in the women’s category. This is the 7th consecutive year win for JDA Software in the corporate category.

JDA has also been consistently bagging the Pulse of the Stampede award, given to the organization with maximum number of participants. This year, there were 120 associates (30 teams) who won it for JDA.

“We are once again delighted to participate in the PUMA Urban Stampede corporate relay race. With JDA’s support for our training and participation at this event, we have been able to bag another win.” said Nitin Gupta, who is heading the JDA Runners Club.

“Our participation in this run is since its inception in 2008 and we have been consistently winning. The win by women’s team this year adds yet another feather to JDA’s cap. In JDA, we not only provide opportunities to each of our associates to grow professionally by empowering them, but we also believe in supporting and promoting various wellness programs to groom their physical and mental health. Moreover, this also helps in demonstrating the value of teamwork amongst associates.” said Vinok Sequeira, group vice president of human resources, JDA Software. 

The Messengers Launches New Business Growth Initiatives

                

The Messengers, a Bangalore-based business enabler company, as part of its growth strategy -- is launching new business innovations that will cater to the demands of the Indian market.

The company has invested in building capabilities in-house to enable it to deliver on its stated promises. Some of the business innovations are – the launch of a dedicated IT and Embedded technology news portal TechSpirIT that aims to bridge the gap between industry and academia, shortly. Other ventures are into social issues’ online publication and an innovative health news portal for the general readers towards proving right healthcare perspectives. As part of CSR projects, it is also working in the rural development space that will enhance the technical and managerial skills of marginalized people. The company has moved its operations to MG Road in order to address clients’ needs better.

In another development, seasoned senior journalist Verghese V Joseph has joined The Messengers as it Vice President, Communications strategy. He will drive the editorial and communications’ projects at The Messengers. He brings with him nearly 20 years of business journalism and communications’ perspective. He has worked in various capacity with publications such as The Economic Times, The Times of India, Financial Express and other leading B2B publications. He is also the Founder-Editor of several online and print publications. “The industry’s focus is on bringing about values and strategies that can help companies focus on their core areas. The Messengers is ideally positioned to bring about this transformation to enable clients address critical issues with holistic solutions.”

Commenting on the developments, Ashish Srivastava, Founder & Managing Director, “As a business enabler company, The Messengers’ public relations, social media, client servicing and marketing communications teams are fully equipped to deliver quality work comparable to the best in its segment. The industry is currently moving towards consolidation and our team understands this trend perfectly. Hence, we are working towards ensuring the reputation of our client's businesses and adopting a tool neutral approach for delivering quality communications outreach.”

According to Poragmoni Das, Co-Founder and Director Strategy, “Now more than ever, communications are at the center of clients’ lives as they look to capture, curate and expand businesses on the go. With the experienced team on hand, the quality and value that The Messengers deliver continues to grow as we partner with newer clients and our quality and value resonate with our clients’ vision.

Persistent Achieves Oracle PartnerNetwork Specialization

Persistent Systems, a leader in software product and technology services and a Gold level member of Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN), today announced it has achieved OPN Specialized status for both Oracle Identity Governance Suite 11g and Oracle Access Management Suite Plus 11g.

Persistent Systems’ approach to Identity and Access Management is fast, iterative and industry-specific, harnessing its allied experience in areas of Cloud, Mobility and Analytics. It has expanded its Oracle Identity and Access Management offerings to cover value-added services such as platform upgrades (from 10g to 11g), migrations and post-implementation training and managed services support. Persistent Systems also offers a suite of ready-to-deploy integrations and preconfigured functionality that can translate into rapid time to value, fast return on investment and lower CapEx.

Highlights

* By achieving a Specialized distinction, Persistent is recognized by Oracle for its expertise in delivering services specifically for both Oracle Identity Governance Suite 11g and Oracle Access Management Sue Plus 11g through competency development, business results and proven success.

To achieve OPN Specialized status, Oracle partners are required to meet a stringent set of requirements that are based on the needs and priorities of the customer and partner community.

SAP In Leaders Quadrant For Data Integration Tools

SAP SE today announced that it has been positioned by Gartner Inc. in the leaders quadrant of the “Magic Quadrant for Data Integration Tools”* 2014 report. The report evaluated data integration products from SAP and recognized it as a leading provider based on its “ability to execute” and “completeness of vision”. The evaluation marks the company’s seventh consecutive year as a leader in the Magic Quadrant for Data Integration Tools.

“Cloud, Big Data and social media are powering new opportunities for companies that can leverage data-driven insights in real time to respond to customer preferences, identify operational efficiencies and in some cases create completely new business models,” said Byron Banks, vice president, Enterprise Information Management, SAP. “SAP provides a comprehensive data integration solution for organizations to consolidate data from any application or service, organize it in into any format and provide it to any user or device. We believe the Gartner Magic Quadrant result affirms SAP’s leadership in the data integration space. The SAP solutions for enterprise information management deliver complete and trusted information for better analytics and more responsive business processes whether they are deployed on-premise, in the cloud or in a combined hybrid landscape.”

According to Gartner “the demand for data integration tools emphasizes broad applicable use, a well-integrated portfolio and interoperability with information and application infrastructures. Flexible deployment and scalability are still expected, while interest in business-facing and platform-as-a-service models grows.”

Global Hackathon Sees 2000 MS Employees Participate

Over 2000 of Microsoft’s employees across seven Indian cities are joining their colleagues across the world for the company’s first global //oneweek hackathon this week. These employees are working on more than 650 ideas that can help and impact a large cross-section of audiences --  developers, enterprises, consumers, governments, not-for-profits, partners, educators, as well as Microsoft’s own internal processes. 

The hackathon is part of Microsoft //oneweek, a week dedicated to employees in the 114 countries where Microsoft operates. An internal challenge, the //oneweek hackathon is being organized this week to usher in the new growth hacking culture at Microsoft. It aims to encourage and inspire people to start thinking like challengers, learn to continuously adapt and put customers ahead of everything they do.

Speaking about the India leg of the hackathon, Bhaskar Pramanik, Chairman, Microsoft India, said “We want to encourage our employees to work outside their usual boundaries and create, imagine and adapt something new that has a purpose. During this week’s hackathon, many of our creative minds are collaborating across geographies and working on ideas and solutions that address business and societal issues. They are using Microsoft technology to suggest solutions that can help people and processes.”

Rohit Thakur, Head of Human Resources at Microsoft India said, “Satya Nadella, our CEO, has challenged us to think differently. The enthusiasm of our employees participating in this hackathon reflect their desire to embrace change and drive positive impact both within and outside the company. We are thrilled to see the huge participation from our employees in India in the //oneweek hackathon.”

The winning hackathon ideas from India will compete with other winners from across the world via online voting in the first week of August. The top five ideas will be evaluate by a jury who will then declare the global winners.

Forum Organizes City-Based Game Development Competition

To build a robust and sustainable game developers ecosystem in the country,the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) Gaming Forum in collaboration with MindBox, India’s leading Creative Education initiatives by ARK Infosolutions are jointly organizing “GameJam Titans”. The “GameJam Titans” is a game development competition, and will be held across six cities in India (Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune and Delhi) from 22nd August to 28th September 2014. The winners shortlisted from each of these cities will be given an opportunity to showcase their game on the sidelines of the NASSCOM Games Developer Conference to be held in Pune on 13th to 15th Nov 2014.

The ever increasing mobile user base with data connectivity is creating opportunities for game developers across the board. Recognizing the growing opportunity, NASSCOM Gaming Forum and Mindbox aim to tap the potential of young gaming developers through this competition. The competition is open to colleges, schools and professionals who will be developing games at the venue for a period of 48 hours. More than 50 schools from each region will participate in these competitions, which will provide an opportunity to students not only to identify their own creativity & life skills, but also compete at this large platform. School teams will be given a theme (week prior to the competition) on which they will develop a game and present to the jury on the final day.

Rajesh Rao, Chair, NASSCOM Gaming Forum, said, “The gaming industry in India has proved its capability in terms of delivering quality products and has the potential for acquiring a large domestic as well as international market. The sector is poised to grow at an exponential level in the years to come and will continue to capture the imagination of users and developers alike. Through this competition, we aim to engage with the youth and encourage them to take up game development as a career as it is a growing domain.

Speaking about the upcoming competition, Rishi Khemka, CEO & Director, ARK Infosolutions, said, “We are overwhelmed with the encouraging response we have received from schools, colleges and their students for our ‘Game Jam Titans’ competition. We, at MindBox, believe in creating such platforms for students to express their individuality in more innovate and creative ways. We are pleased to partner with NASSCOM Gaming Forum and provide young students this creative platform and promote the game development culture in India.”

The Indian gaming services have moved up the value chain with more end- to-end offshoring work in terms of development coming to India. NASSCOM Gaming Forum recognizes the gaming industry as a significant user of technology which can further showcase India’s well established credentials in the IT Industry space. The competition will aim to further build the gaming ecosystem in India and promote it as a viable career option amongst students. Students participating can get registered at www.gamejamtitans.com for GameJam Titans. NASSCOM Gaming Forum also plans to provide expert training to registered students for GameJam Titans on Unity Game Engine.

First Ever Intel Processor Based Croma Tablet 2 in 1

Croma and Intel India today launched the Croma1179 Tablet(8”) and Croma1177  2-in-1 (10.1”) powered by Intel® processors at an event led by Ajit Joshi, CEO & MD, Infiniti Retail and Gregory Bryant, Vice President, Sales and Marketing Group, General Manager, Asia-Pacific and Japan Region for Intel.  Priced at Rs 13,990 and Rs 21,990 respectively, the devices run on the Microsoft Windows* 8.1 platform and deliver an ideal balance of performance, battery life and graphics to users.

Croma is India’s first large format specialist retail chain for consumer electronics, with 101 outlets in 16 cities across the country. The company launched Croma Life Accessories in 2008 to provide innovative and unique products to help consumers choose the best product for their needs, which now includes a range of computing devices.

Speaking on the occasion Ajit Joshi, CEO & MD Infiniti Retail said “Croma’s own label products are about meeting consumer needs with the latest and the best technology. The new Croma tablet and 2 in 1 are a combination of amazing features, graphics, top performance supported with good battery life packed into a sleek device, a real owners’ pride. We are confident our customers will appreciate the value packed in the Croma tablet and 2 in1s. Intel has always been a great partner to work with and we are happy to launch the newest Croma devices with them.”

Earlier this year, Intel outlined its strategy to focus on new mobile form factors like 2 in 1s and Tablets in India. Gregory Bryant, Vice President and General Manager, Intel Asia-Pacific and Japan, said, “We are excited to be working with Croma to bring these new mobile devices to consumers in India. Croma’s tablets and 2 in 1s based on Intel processors deliver superior computing performance and great battery life to keep pace with today’s mobile lifestyle.”

When it comes to mobile devices, consumers today want a smooth browsing experience, security, good battery life, better visuals and graphics without compromising on performance. Based on this insight, Croma and Intel came together to launch the tablet and 2 in1 powered by Intel Processor and running Windows 8.1 OS which create a differentiated product proposition in Croma’s existing tablet offering. The Croma 2 in 1(10.1”) powered by Intel will be the lowest priced 2 in 1 in the Indian retail market offering consumers great value for money.

Croma 1179 Tablet

The Croma Tablet 8” is Croma’s first ever Intel Architecture-based tablet in India. Equipped with an 8” (160 ppi) of 1280 x 800 resolution display, the tablet delivers an ideal balance of performance, battery life and graphics to users.  With slick dimensions, the device is easy to hold and light to carry. It runs on the latest Windows 8.1 and packs a powerful Intel Atom Processor Z3735D, 1.33GHz with a 2 GB of RAM; offering powerful multitasking and a rich multi-media experience. The 2 MP rear camera and 2 MP front camera ensure quality pictures and great video capability. The Croma Tablet 8” comes with 32GB internal memory which can be expanded using a MicroSD card. The device also sports a powerful 5000mAh lithium polymer battery for on the go usage. Designed for both work and entertainment, the Croma Tablet is the optimal device for viewing videos, playing enhanced games, and reading e-books anytime, anywhere.

Croma 1177 2-in-1

The Croma 2-in-1 10.1” is the perfect ‘on-the-go’ gadget, as it offers the portability of a tablet and the performance and convenience of a laptop to consumers. The 10.1” device encompasses Intel’s vision to offer a variety of choices to match the varied needs and lifestyles of consumers. Powered by a Intel Atom Processor Z3735D , the 2-in-1 runs on Windows 8.1 OS platform making it a true powerhouse for work and play; the device’s performance is further enhanced by 3G ready capability and WiFi connectivity. With a 2MP front and 2MP rear camera the 2-in-1 serves the consumers as a perfectly designed, high performance and reliable device. Being the lowest priced 2 in 1 device in Indian retail, this device truly offers a great value for money proposition for consumers who seek two devices for the price of one.

Forum Organizes City-Based Game Development Competition

To build a robust and sustainable game developers ecosystem in the country,the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) Gaming Forum in collaboration withMindBox, India’s leading Creative Education initiatives by ARK Infosolutions are jointly organizing “GameJam Titans”. The “GameJam Titans” is a game development competition, and will be held across six cities in India (Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune and Delhi) from 22nd August to 28th September 2014. The winners shortlisted from each of these cities will be given an opportunity to showcase their game on the sidelines of the NASSCOM Games Developer Conference to be held in Pune on 13th to 15th Nov 2014.