Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ with Bigger Storage and Faster RAM Unveiled in India

Samsung India today launched a new variant of Galaxy S8+ with 6GB RAM and 128GB internal storage, following the tremendous response to its recently-launched flagship smartphones Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+.

The new variant, which will be available in Midnight Black colour, retains its flagship style - with a stunning bezel-less dual-edge Infinity Display that provides a truly cinematic viewing experience. The new Galaxy S8+ also comes with Samsung Pay - the mobile payment service with defense-grade security, the best low-light camera and personal assistant, Bixby.

The new Galaxy S8+ builds on Samsung’s heritage of creating stunning designs and meaningful innovations that transform people’s lives. Following the success of the flagship smartphones and great response from Indian market for Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+, Samsung is launching the newer variant with 6GB RAM and 128GB internal storage.

"The resounding success of the recently launched Galaxy S8 & Galaxy S8+ underscores the unmatched superiority of Samsung in the premium smartphone segment. The new Galaxy S8+ variant with its best in class 6GB RAM & 128GB internal memory, will give our consumers the freedom to do infinitely more. It is the ultimate device for power users who aspire to explore new possibilities, are always on top of their game and for whom multi-tasking is a way of life,” said  Asim Warsi, Senior Vice President, Mobile Business, Samsung India.

An efficient device and a definite showstopper in terms of looks, the new Galaxy S8+ is the best choice for consumers looking for a seamless experience even while using dual SIM.

 Galaxy with Infinite Possibilities

The new Galaxy S8+ packs in enhanced performance and features:

·  Infinite Performance: The new Galaxy S8+ is powered with 6GB RAM. This makes the device infinitely powerful and allows multitasking with immaculate efficiency. With increased memory, you can have a seamless experience when playing graphically intensive games.

·         Infinite Entertainment: As the world’s first mobile device certified by the UHD Alliance as MOBILE HDR PREMIUM^TM, the new Galaxy S8+ lets you see the same vibrant colours and contrasts that filmmakers intended while watching your favourite shows. It also offers next-level gaming experience with vivid and superior graphic technology, as well as Game Pack, featuring top game titles, including select titles supported by the Vulkan API.

·         Infinite Camera: The new Galaxy S8+ is equipped with 12MP rear camera with Dual Pixel Technology and 8MP front camera with smart autofocus, with F1.7 aperture that is perfect for taking bright and high-resolution photos even in low light conditions. With this enhanced variant, consumers will not have to worry about running out of space while clicking pictures and storing memories on their phones.

·  Infinite Convenience: The new Galaxy S8+ with 128GB storage makes your experiences unforgettable, flawless and smooth. It will, in particular, serve best to customers who use dual SIM and require large memory.

Availability

The Samsung Galaxy S8+ 128GB, with its sleek and premium design, is available in Midnight Black colour. Consumers can pre-book the new Galaxy S8+ on Samsung Shop and Flipkart starting from June 2. As an introductory offer, all the customers will also be eligible for a free Wireless Charger.

The Samsung Galaxy S8+ 128GB will be priced at Rs 74,900 and will be available across India from June 9.

Murthy Asks Senior Execs to take Pay Cuts to Stop IT Layoffs

IT companies can protect the jobs of youngsters if senior executives take pay cuts, said Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy.

He added that the industry has dealt with the issue several times in the past.

Murthy said he has no doubt that all industry leaders have good intentions to solve the problem of layoffs.

"There are a lot of smart leaders in the industry, but I have no doubt at all that they are all well-intentioned people and they can find solutions," he told news channel ET Now.

Murthy also said this is not for the first time that the industry has faced the layoff problem and hence there should not be any extreme anxiety as the industry had dealt the issue and found solutions then."Let us remember we have gone through this several times in the past. We went through that in 2008, in 2001. So, this is nothing new. Therefore, there is no need for us to become extremely anxious. We have had solutions to such problems in the past," he said.

Giving example of Infosys on how they tackled the layoff problem, Murthy said the company could protect the jobs of youngsters after executives at senior management level took pay cuts.

"I have a feeling that it is possible for us to protect the jobs of youngsters if the senior management people were to make some minor adjustments - adjustment of taking salary cuts," Murthy said.

The senior-most people at the internal director level took the highest pay cut, and then to follow suit was the senior vice president who took a slightly lower cut, Murthy said.

Murthy said Infosys did this in 2001 when the market shrunk. "Let me give you example of Infosys itself. When the market became very tough and it shrank actually in 2001. We all sat together with senior management and then we said - look let us make some sacrifice and ensure that we protect the jobs of youngsters," he said.

"That time we had offered jobs to 1,500 engineers. Several companies were postponing the joining day. We said let us not do that, let us demonstrate the commitment to youngsters by senior people taking some salary cuts based on the disposable income as we go down the hierarchy and welcome those 1,500 engineers," he added.

Murthy also said parallelly, industry leaders will identify new areas of opportunity and mount training programmes to train youngsters and give them enough opportunities to pick up technologies and ask them to work hard and ensure they are in a position to add value to the company in next one year, and if they failed they could look out for another job.

"It is not fair to simply send somebody home, and then let them become very very anxious, because they may have families depending on them. They may have children, parents, spouses and all that, so it is incumbent on leaders of the industry to find reasonable solutions..." he said.

Agencies

Cisco and IBM Join Forces to Tackle Cybercrime through Technology Integration, Services and Threat Intelligence Collaboration

Cisco and IBM Security has announced they are working together to address the growing global threat of cybercrime. In a new agreement, Cisco and IBM Security will work closely together across products, services and threat intelligence for the benefit of customers.

Cisco security solutions will integrate with IBM’s QRadar to protect organizations across networks, endpoints and cloud. Customers will also benefit from the scale of IBM Global Services support of Cisco products in their Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) offerings. The agreement also establishes a new relationship between the IBM X-Force and Cisco Talos security research teams who will begin collaborating on threat intelligence research and coordinating on major cybersecurity incidents.

One of the core issues impacting security teams is the proliferation of security tools that do not communicate or integrate. A recent Cisco survey of 3,000 chief security officers found that 65 percent of their organizations use between six and 50 different security products. Managing such complexity is challenging over-stretched security teams and can lead to potential gaps in security. The Cisco and IBM Security relationship is focused on helping organizations reduce the time required to detect and mitigate threats, offering organizations integrated tools to help them automate a threat response with greater speed and accuracy.

“In cybersecurity, taking a data-driven approach is the only way to stay ahead of the threats impacting your business,” said Bill Heinrich, Chief Information Security Director, BNSF Railway. “Cisco and IBM working together greatly increases our team’s ability to focus on stopping threats versus making disconnected systems work with each other. This more open and collaborative approach is an important step for the industry and our ability to defend ourselves against cybercrime.”

Integrating Threat Defenses Across Networks and Cloud

The cost of data breaches to enterprises continues to rise. In 2016, the Ponemon Institute found for companies surveyed the cost was at its highest ever at $4 million - up 29 percent over the past three years.  A slow response can also impact the cost of a breach – incidents that took longer than 30 days to contain cost $1 million more than those containedwithin 30 days. These rising costs make visibility into threats, and blocking them quickly, central to an integrated threat defense approach. 

The combination of Cisco’s best-of-breed security offerings and its architectural approach, integrated with IBM’s Cognitive Security Operations Platform, will help customers secure their organizations more effectively from the network to the endpoint to the cloud. As part of the collaboration, Cisco will build new applications for IBM’s QRadar security analytics platform. The first two new applications will be designed to help security teams understand and respond to advanced threats and will be available on the IBM Security App Exchange. These will enhance user experience, and help clients identify and remediate incidents more effectively when working with Cisco’s Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW), Next-Generation Intrusion Protection System (NGIPS) and Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) and Threat Grid.

In addition, IBM’s Resilient Incident Response Platform (IRP) will integrate with Cisco’s Threat Grid to provide security teams with insights needed to respond to incidents faster. For example, analysts in the IRP can look up indicators of compromise with Cisco Threat Grid's threat intelligence, or detonate suspected malware with its sandbox technology. This enables security teams to gain valuable incident data in the moment of response.

“Cisco’s architectural approach to security allows organizations to see a threat once, and stop it everywhere. By combining Cisco’s comprehensive security portfolio with IBM Security’s operations and response platform, Cisco and IBM bring best-of-breed products and solutions across the network, endpoint and cloud, paired with advanced analytics and orchestration capabilities,” said David Ulevitch, SVP and general manager, Cisco Security.

“IBM has long been a proponent of open collaboration and threat sharing in cybersecurity,” said Marc van Zadelhoff, general manager, IBM Security. “With Cisco joining our immune system of defense, joint customers will greatly expand their ability to enhance their use of cognitive technologies like IBM Watson for Cybersecurity. Also, having our IBM X-Force and Cisco Talos teams collaborating is a tremendous advantage for the good guys in the fight against cybercrime.”

Threat Intelligence and Managed Services

IBM X-Force and Cisco Talos research teams will collaborate on security research aimed at addressing the most challenging cybersecurity problems facing mutual customers by connecting their leading experts. For joint customers, IBM will deliver an integration between X-Force Exchange and Cisco’s Threat Grid. This integration greatly expands the historical and real-time threat intelligence that security analysts can correlate for deeper insights. 

For example, Cisco and IBM recently shared threat intelligence as part of the recent WannaCry ransomware attacks. The teams coordinated their response and researchers exchanged insights into how the malware was spreading. They continue to collaborate on the investigation to ensure joint customers, and the industry, have the most relevant information.

Through this expanded collaboration, IBM’s Managed Security Services team, which manages security for over 3,700 customers globally, will work with Cisco to deliver new services aimed at further reducing complexity. One of the first offerings is designed for the growing hybrid cloud market. As enterprise customers migrate security infrastructure to public and private cloud providers, IBM Security will provide Managed Security Services in support of Cisco security platforms in leading public cloud services.

Brands Ride on Truecaller’s Road-Block to Success!

Truecaller’s ad platform is taking a lead in the In-App mobile programmatic advertising by delivering nationwide scale and reach while also driving engagement with audiences. First year of the platform has seen leading businesses already keeping it at the heart of their campaign.

Being third most used and downloaded app in India, the Truecaller platform through partner campaigns delivered maximum reach and returns for leading businesses like Vivo during IPL, Amazon, Pizza Hut, Myntra, Koovs.com and Oneplus among many more…

According to Tejinder Gill, VP Sales and Head of India Operations at Truecaller, “From day one we are solving a marketer’s need to reach a wider audience in a country like India where TV, Print and Outdoor are the most used but expensive propositions. Our biggest strength is the engagement and undivided attention we can provide to advertisers. We can deliver a brand’s message and enable them to stay on top of the consumer’s mind simply by the fact that we are not an ‘appointment viewing’ app. This is proven by the fact that over 70% of our advertisers are repeat customers, which assures us of the efficacy of our platform.”

 Planning and Buying, Interactive Avenues, adds “It has been a pleasure witnessing Truecaller’s journey in the mobile ad space. From the time they opened up their ads platform, they have focused on their core, which is delivering value to clients through reach, value & scale. Interactive Avenues has been closely associated with Truecaller to deliver this very value to our clients, and they’re very satisfied with the results. For a platform to go from delivering 40 Million to 100 Million impressions a day, in 4 months is no small feat. Not to mention delivering over 100,000 clicks per day from a qualified audience of smartphone users with data. I can’t wait to see what barrier they’ll break next and I’m sure Interactive Avenues will share this achievement with them soon.”

 Associated brands have received an overwhelming traction on the platform and continue to bet big after witnessing great engagement for their campaigns.

Siddharth Banerjee - EVP and Head – Brand Communications and Insights,Vodafone India, adds “We expected Truecaller to deliver but the performance exceeded our outlook. 
Vodafone’s campaigns on Truecaller are delivering more than 100 Million impressions in a day, also delivering well in terms of performance. Vodafone India looks forward to more collaborations as we experiment with their new products and assets.”

Government IT Spending in India to Total $7.8 Billion in 2017

The government in India is forecast to spend $7.8 billion US dollars (USD) on IT in 2017, 7.5 percent increase from 2016, according to Gartner, Inc. This is down from Gartner’s previous projection for 9.5 percent growth this year.

“The 2 percent revision in our outlook is primarily due to the effects of demonetization and a drop in industrial production,” said Moutusi Sau, principal research analyst at Gartner. “However, spending plans like affordable housing scheme, and increased loans to small and medium enterprises by the government are likely to have a positive effect on IT spending in the next few quarters.”

IT services (which includes consulting, software support, business process outsourcing, IT outsourcing, implementation, and hardware support) is expected to grow 10.8 percent in 2017 to reach $2 billion USD, making it the largest IT spending category.

The software segment includes enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain management (SCM), customer relationship management (CRM), desktop, infrastructure, vertical specific software and other application tools. The software segment is expected to grow 10.8 percent in 2017 to reach $1.1 billion USD. ERP/SCM/CRM will be the fastest growing segment with 14.5 percent growth in this category.

Devices (which includes printers/copiers/MFPs, mobile devices, PCs and tablets) is expected to grow 10.4 percent in 2017 to reach $1.1 billion USD.

VLCC Acquires Wellscience Forays into Nutraceuticals and Direct Selling

VLCC, a globally renowned brand in beauty and wellness industry, today announced its foray into the fast growing nutraceuticals industry with the acquisition of the Direct Selling business of Wellscience, a Gurugram-based company that offers a comprehensive range of high quality nutraceutical supplements and personal care products catering to customer requirements across age groups.To be rebranded VLCC Wellscience, the company’s products are all Ayurvedic or herbal and address condition specific wellness needs of customers, using an innovative Active Identifiable Marker (AIM) technology.

Commenting on the acquisition, Mukesh Luthra, Chairman, VLCC Group, said, “Combining its strategy to enter new and emerging categories in the Beauty and Wellness domain at large with the strategy to enter new channels of distribution, to reach out to a larger set of consumers of Beauty and Wellness offerings, VLCC is now further extending its presence in the high-growth Fast Moving Healthcare Goods (FMHG) segment, with its foray into the nutraceuticals and cosmeceuticals segment, and retailing these products through the Direct Selling channel, which is an emerging opportunity given that the Government of India has very recently clarified regulations governing this industry.”

“VLCC is already present in the FMHG segment with its VLCC Slimmer’s range of fortified/functional foods and expanding to nutraceuticals and cosmeceuticals is a natural extension our products business”, Mr. Luthra further added.

Wellscience was established in 2009 by a team led by Lajinder Bawa. He will continue to lead the business as the CEO of VLCC Wellscience. A 20-year veteran of the Direct Selling Industry, he is credited with having brought it to the country when he became the founding CEO of Oriflame India in 1995. He has also been an advisor to leading Direct Selling players, including Modicare and Hindustan Lever Network.

Commenting on the synergy between the two businesses, Mr. Lajinder Bawa said, “This is a significant step forward for Wellscience. VLCC has been committed to transforming lives for close to three decades and ensures that its product lines and service offerings are of utmost efficacy and quality, at all times. We believe that the brand values of Wellscience are in sync with the values of VLCC and this partnership will provide us the necessary thrust required for our next level of growth.”

Within the overall FMCG domain in India, the FMHG segment is one of the fastest growing. According to a 2015 Assocham-RNCOS study, this segment is likely to touch US$ 6.1 billion by 2020 from the current level of US$ 2.8 billion, growing at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17 per cent.

More specifically with respect to the nutraceuticals market in India, it is expected to double to INR 267.64 billion by 2020 and grow at a CAGR of 16% over the next 5 years, as per a recent study by the Drug Marketing and ;Manufacturing Association (DMMA).

Furthermore, the Health and Wellness products market in India through Direct Selling is estimated at over Rs 35 billion, contributing 47 per cent share to the total Direct Selling market.

Uber Brings New App for Driver Compliments to 29 Cities Across India

Uber, the world’s largest ridesharing app that connects riders with drivers to provide convenient, reliable and affordable rides at the push of a button, today announced the launch of the ‘Driver Compliments’ feature. Through this feature Uber aims to make it possible for riders to positively reinforce good behaviour and in the process humanize the relationship between the riders and driver partners.

“Last month, we launched community guidelines with the objective of encouraging mutual respect, and we are now excited to introduce ‘Compliments’. Our driver partners deliver millions of safe rides everyday and in many instances go beyond their call of duty. We hope our riders take a moment to express their appreciation by using this feature. It will encourage our driver partners to do even better!,” said Pradeep Parameswaran, Head, Central Operation, Uber India.

Once a rider leaves a compliment, drivers will get a notification in app, taking them to the message and the compliments badge they’ve collected - whether that’s for expert navigation, great music choice or excellent service - because sometimes the little things make all the difference, and 5 stars are not enough.