Array Networks Inc., the network functions platform company, today announced that the Company has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Netmagic (An NTT Communications Company), to launch the next-generation Network Functions Virtualization platform (NFV) Center of Excellence to enable enterprises in India, to enable enterprises in India, with end-to-end customized hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) solution for scaling and optimizing business-critical applications. This agreement of collaboration signals the continued commitment of both the companies to accelerate the scalability of customers’ businesses in the ICT industry.
The NFV Center of Excellence is enabled to address the emerging requirements of customers in a cloud generation. This will be the first of its kind and will support customers to host multiple network functions on a single purpose built hardware.
“We are extremely pleased to form an alliance with Array Networks, to provide enterprises with secure remote access to applications and data,” said Nitin Mishra, SVP and Chief Product Officer of Netmagic (An NTT Communications Company). “After transitioning servers, desktop and storage, it is estimated that more than 80% of customers are considering to move their networking to a more flexible and software centric virtualization platform – without compromising on the performance and SLAs of business delivery. And, with our enhanced ecosystem of alliance partners, we are targeting enterprises in the Government and Private sectors in India, as part of our go-to-market strategy of the first phase.”
Shibu Paul, Regional Director – APAC of Array Networks stated, “We are delighted to be a strategic partner to Netmagic in bringing our future ready hyperconvergence solutions to the Indian market. This collaboration will accelerate Array Networks position in the Indian market as a leader in Hyper Converge virtualization.”
Hyperconverged platforms include a hypervisor for virtualized computing, software-defined storage, and virtualized networking, and they typically run on standard, off-the-shelf servers. Array's vAPV virtual application delivery controllers (ADC) and vxAG virtual secure access gateways (SSL VPN) provide control over access to applications, desktops, files, networks and Web sites from a broad range of remote and mobile devices – providing secure connectivity, end-point and server-side security and application-level AAA policies on a per user basis.
Jet Privilege Private Limited (JPPL), an internationally acclaimed, award winning loyalty & rewards programme and the Frequent Flyer Programme (FFP) of Jet Airways, today further strengthened its partnership with IndianOil by expanding its footprint to Bengaluru. The strategic partnership between JetPrivilege and IndianOil kick started in Delhi and Mumbai, garnering phenomenal response with members actively earning out of this collaboration. In a short span of just three months since its launch, members are seeing significant value of the partnership where fuel is become an everyday category for them to earn and redeem their JPMiles, deepening their engagement with the programme.
This unique association further reinstates JetPrivilege’s positioning of a rewarding loyalty and rewards programme fulfilling its members’ everyday lifestyle needs. Inspired by the success of this alliance in Mumbai and Delhi, the partnership will now roll out across select 80+ outlets in Bengaluru. Famed as India’s Silicon Valley and also home to a vast number of educational institutes, Bengaluru offers tremendous growth potential for the programme.
JetPrivilege members in Bengaluru will now be a step closer towards earning a free flight by simply mentioning their JetPrivilege membership number when purchasing fuel at select IOCL outlets. Members will earn 1 JPMile on every Rs 150 spent on regular fuel and 3 JPMiles on every Rs 150 spent on XtraPremium fuel at IndianOil outlets. The accumulated JPMiles can then be redeemed for free flight tickets to over 1000 destinations worldwide or for 1500+ products on reward catalogue. With a visionary lens on establishing JPMiles as the reward currency of the future, JetPrivilege members can also redeem their existing JPMiles to purchase fuel at the same outlets and get Rs 1 worth of fuel for every 4 JPMiles.
[How it Works? To Earn JPMiles on your Fuel Spends 1. Fill fuel at select IOCL retail outlets 2. Mention your JetPrivilege Membership number to the IOCL pump attendant 3. Earn JPMiles on your transaction To Redeem your JPMiles for Fuel 1. Fill fuel at select IOCL retail outlets 2. Mention your JetPrivilege Membership number and provide the OTP received on your registered mobile number to the IOCL pump attendant 3. Pay by redeeming your JPMiles]
Commenting on this association, Manish Dureja, Managing Director, Jet Privilege Private Limited said, “The strategic partnership with IndianOil launched earlier this year, in Mumbai, Delhi & Chennai, has been a successful one and highlights the advantages of shared capabilities. Expansion to newer markets accelerates our constant endeavour towards building relevance and value in the everyday lives of our members. Forging partnerships iconic brand like IndianOil is a step towards fulfilling aspirations of our members by delivering memorable and rewarding experiences giving our members even greater choice and flexibility in how they earn and use their JPMiles.”
Speaking about the expansion plans, Sanjeev Jain, Executive Director, Retail Sales said “Innovation can come in different ways. And we are proud to be leading this particular IndianOil-JetPrivilege innovative partnership which is delighting our customers. After a good start at Mumbai and Delhi, we are now offering customers the option to earn and redeem JPMiles for fuel purchase at select IndianOil outlets of Bengaluru. IndianOil is celebrating 2018 as Year of Trust and this benefit is an expression of gratitude to our customers for consistently reposing their trust in our refueling services.”
WeP Solutions Ltd, India’s Leading Retail billing solution provider, has opened its ‘Experience Zone ‘at HSR Layout, Bangalore. It will be the first store in South India to display all products related to retail billing enabling a real-time experience for its customers. The store is aimed at providing a hands-on experience to shop owners and traders with regard to their complete billing needs.
The experience zone will enable customers to understand the complete cycle of creating a list of items, customizing billing, and calculating discounts and tax compliance. They will also be able to seamlessly connect to device such as weighing scales, barcode scanners, and cash drawers.
Speaking about this, Venkatesh K, Chief Executive, Printer Business Unit, WeP Solutions Ltd, said, “Bangalore is one of the fastest growing smart cities in India, and hence, the perfect place location for the experience zone. It will definitely be a game changer in the retail billing and printing sector offering manifold benefits to our trusted consumers. The store will be a one-stop-shop for the users, where all their requirements are fulfilled under one roof – right from bill generation to compliance and printing. The initial response has been positive, and we hope to make the experience better for our trusted clients with each passing day.”
The idea behind devising these unique bill-printing solutions was to upgrade the current manual billing process used by shop owners. WeP aims to enable them with compact, easy to install, and simple to use billing machines. The market is huge in India with an estimated 18 million shops in need of these solutions. Not only will these printers omit manual errors but also avert any cash loss and improve productivity. WeP billing printers are highly affordable with the range starting from INR 6999. The printers come in both Thermal and Dot Matrix technology, making them ideal for small and medium businesses such as hotels, retail and grocery stores, garment and textile shops, and sweet shops.
WeP Solutions Ltd is already a pioneer in the billing printer segment, with 80,000+ satisfied retail customers in India. All products are designed and manufactured from WeP’s plant in Baddi, Himachal Pradesh. The company provides onsite installation of its billing printers. All their products are sold and serviced by a strong and robust dealer network pan India.
Manipal Global Education Services (MaGE), India’s leading higher educational and training services provider, today announced the appointment of Ravi Panchanadan as Managing Director and CEO of the Manipal Global Education Services.
Ravi had been appointed the President and COO of MaGE in 2017. Prior to that, he had handled both consumer and enterprise businesses for MaGE, in India and abroad. He has headed universities in Malaysia as well as MENA region, apart from leading professional learning and assessment businesses in India.
Ravi, who has close to three decades of experience across FMCG, IT & ITES industries, brings to his new role a thorough understanding of the best business practices and the latest technologies. This experience will help him expand the existing businesses and develop new engines of growth, both in the national and international markets. Ravi’s business acumen, proven record in setting up new businesses from scratch and building them to profitable propositions, will help MaGE achieve its vision of empowering learners and transforming lives.
Commenting on his appointment, Ravi said, “I'm quite excited about my new role. I look forward to contributing to the brand’s success in the coming years. It is an exciting period to be part of an organization which is a significant player in the sector and I intend taking it a couple of notches higher.”
Passing the baton
Ravi has taken over from S Vaitheeswaran, who had been heading the company for six years. Vaitheeswaran moves to his new role as the Group CEO – Manipal Education & Medical Group (MEMG) at the corporate office.
Commenting on the change of leadership, Vaitheeswaran stated: “I believe it was an exciting journey for all involved and handing over the reins to the right people is paramount. I truly feel that the last six years were very fulfilling and gave me the opportunity to gain valuable experience in the education industry. I am sure Ravi, with his core skills and expertise, will take MaGE to the next level. Given his talent and passion, I’m sure he will do great here.”
MaGE has been witnessing a new phase of growth over the last few years, having forayed into diverse segments and grown rapidly. At the same time, it has leveraged technology to empower students with its quality education and innovative learning methodologies.
Manipal Global Education Services Pvt Ltd. provides customized training solutions for industry partners as well as direct-to-learner diplomas and certificate programs in various fields such as information technology, finance and management. The company offers higher education services that include a range of services for educational institutions in India; corporate training programs in partnership with major banks and other institutions; vocational training across a number of sectors; and technology-driven services in areas, such as testing and education delivery.
Ather Energy launched their disruptive intelligent, electric scooter Ather 450 and their previously unveiled variant, the Ather 340. The Ather 450 is designed for city riding conditions, it comes with a top speed of 80 km/hr, a range of 75 km and one of the quickest accelerations of 3.9 seconds from 0-40 km/hr in the scooter market.
Limited pre-orders have opened on Ather’s website and, their experience centre, AtherSpace at Indiranagar will open for test rides on Friday, June 8.
The Product:
The Ather 450 has been designed to solve for problems limiting current electric two-wheelers, like slow charging speeds, low powered motors, and short battery lives. It can fast charge to 80% at a rate of 1 km/minute. It comes with a 3.3kW BLDC motor that can comfortably ride up 18-degree slopes, making steep parking lots, flyovers, and roads an easy climb. And for the first time in the category, Ather 450 comes with parking assist, which allows riders to reverse into tight parking locations.
The key differentiator of the Ather 450 are its intelligence features, seamless charging and ownership experience.
The Ather 450 has a 7” touchscreen dashboard that allows onboard navigation with options of alternative routes and saved locations. It comes with the Ather app that enables push navigation from the phone to the vehicle dashboard, remote monitoring of the vehicle health, charge monitoring and managing service requirements. Finally, with the over-the-air (OTA) functionality, the vehicle is capable of improving over time with continuous improvement and addition of new features and functionalities.
The Ather 450 comes with a home charging Point, that will be installed by the company at either owners’ homes or workplace. Features like surge protection, authenticated power draw, and remote charge monitoring makes Ather’s Point a fast, safe and intelligent charger.
Ather Energy has a new dealership and service model. While the ordering, payment, and test ride scheduling is online, the brand has opened its experience centre, AtherSpace to give customers an in-depth look and experience of the product. The servicing woes are also taken away by a seamless doorstep pickup and service that can be scheduled through the Ather app.
The Pricing
Ather is offering a unique no-hassle, pricing model. The total cost includes what consumers pay upfront to buy the scooter and a monthly subscription that will take care of most operational expenses.
The Ather One plan entitles customers to free public and home charging, periodic maintenance inclusive of consumables, breakdown assistance and unlimited data services for the dashboard at only Rs. 700 + GST per month, which is way lower than the sustenance cost of present scooters.
The Ather 450 is priced at Rs. 1,24,750 on road and the Ather 340 is priced at Rs. 1,09,750 on road. This is inclusive of subsidy @ Rs. 22,000, GST, road tax, smart card fee, registration card, and insurance.
For the first set of consumers, Ather Energy is offering the first year of the subscription plan for free. The company will also provide a home charging Point with the Ather 450 and a charging cable with the Ather 340. The price of these products and their installation will be waived off for these consumers.
Tarun Mehta, Co-Founder & CEO says, "We started building electric scooters four years ago at IIT Madras and we are super excited to launch not only the Ather 340, but also our higher performance flagship variant, the Ather 450. It has been designed with quick acceleration, great handling, high storage space and new-to-category features like park assist, remote diagnostics, and onboard navigation. In the last 4 years we have not only built the scooter, but an ecosystem for an electric vehicle future. Be it the suppliers and partners who were entering the EV market, the charging infrastructure that had to be set up for consumers and the engineering talent itself to build the products. Between the Ather 450 & Ather 340 launching and AtherGrid being up and running in Bengaluru, we are really looking forward to expanding into Chennai & Pune in the coming months. These are exciting times to be a part of the industry."
The newest entrant in the taxi business in the metropolis has also vowed to be the greenest on this World Environment Day. While rival taxi companies are slowing down on EV plans, S3 has got the approval and tie up for a mobile bio-diesel distribution pump. The pump will be used to fill bio-diesel for its cabs across Mumbai.
Speaking on the development Sohel Kazani said “I am very excited that we have received a fantabulous response from the drivers and riders both. As a company, Sahyadri Smart Safe Private Limited was a late entrant in the business, but we always wanted to be the path leaders. Going forward with our vision, we have procured the equipment and supply for bio-diesel distribution. The mobile bio-diesel distribution van will travel all over the Mumbai and have fixed timings at South Mumbai and near all Mumbai entry points. In the first stage we only want to supply the fuel to our taxis, if we are surplus, we will distribute it to other vehicles too.”
Bio-diesel blend has been made a mandate in many countries. The government had recommended a blend in 2017 but the same has not been made compulsory. Biofuels also reduce the emissions making the environment cleaner. It would help the economy by reducing crude import; India imports approximately 8 lakh crores of crude oil annually. Also, it is priced lower than convention diesel, resulting in savings for the drivers. Shifting to biofuels is also a long-term solution to the problem of rising fuel prices. There is no major infrastructure change required compared to EVs where major infrastructure investment is required on charging points.
At the commercial inception of the cab services, S3 had provided a patented technology registered as 'Oxy Power' to all its drivers. This technology requires an external fitment in the car and helps in the better utilization of the fuel resulting in 20% and 30% reduction in fuel consumption. Reduced fuel consumption helped the taxis to operate at flat fares all the times. Now with BioDiesel, there will be further 5% to 10% reduction in fuel costs resulting in Net overall 40% reduction in fuel bill to be paid by the taxi owners.
“The average consumption of fuel by the cab owners based on 300km per day traveling amounts to 30 liters of diesel, and that equals to Rs 2200 per day. A 40% reduction would mean Rs 880 saving per day on fuel account or as much as Rs 26000 approx a month by using bio-diesel and the oxy-power unit. A pilot study made us understand that it keeps the fuel systems and fuel injector cleaner thus reducing the vehicle maintenance cost and increasing the mileage. It will also help in additional employment generation. We would like to work closely with the government to make the shift to biofuels happen and we hope that they lower the GST on bio-diesel to 5%” mentioned Sohel.
Biodiesel can be used in any diesel car without any additional modification as in the case of CNG. It is cleaner and more efficient than regular diesel. Biodiesel can be used alone or blended with regular diesel in any proportions. Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Road Transport has been advocating the use of biofuels for a very long time. He has mentioned on several occasions that there is an urgent need to re-think and revisit transport infrastructure and fuel dependency across not just India, but the globe.
As per United Nations’ Water Development Report 2016, one of the most serious problems mankind faces today is the scarcity of water for drinking and domestic use. In India, 63 million people are still lacking access to safe drinking water, according to statistics from World Bank. While potable water shortage is a matter of global concern, experts have in the recent past stressed that efficient processes and technologies for conservation, management and proper utilization of water systems is crucial to address the growing water crisis.
With an eye to innovate in terms of water resource management, Chariot Tech Private Limited, a company that operates New-Delhi based IoT start-up Chariot, has recently tied up with Axioma Metering, a market leader in energy and metering products’ manufacturing in the Baltic region.
The partnership intends to change the face of water metering in India by introducing an umbrella of IoT technology-enabled smart water meters, which will be equipped to monitor, analyze, and appropriately manage water networks across the country.
Commenting on the collaboration, Nilay Mehrotra, Co-Founder & CEO, Chariot said, “In today’s era of rapid urbanization, management of the water systems is a critical component for the sustained socio-economic growth. At a time when our country is facing the threat of a full-blown water crisis, Axioma and Chariot’s partnership is not only going to benefit the Smart Cities mission, but also the country’s citizens extensively. Coupled with the power of the Internet of Things, the adaptation of smart water metering on a large scale has the potential to enable responsible water usage within communities, which in turn, can emerge as a permanent solution to India’s water mismanagement woes. With the help of advanced analytics-based optimizing strategies, we dream of a future where every household gets a fair share of clean water supply.”
With the thrust on Smart Cities and Digital India recently, maintaining operational efficiency in terms of urban planning and infrastructure development for residents has become all the important. The oulook and growth trajectory of Smart Cities of the future will largely depend upon smart infrastructure; this is exactly where OEMs need to partner with startups, to derive support in meeting their software and hardware requirements.
Vaidas Jakubavicius, CEO, Axioma Metering said, “Apart from being a manufacturer of world-class heat and water metering devices, we at Axioma Metering believe in constant innovation, R8D, and upscaling. While we already assume a leadership role in developing ultrasound technology-based metering products in Baltic countries, we are indeed delighted to partner with Chariot in India, so as to bring a new dimension to the smart water metering scenario in this country. With sustainability and high-tech resource monitoring at its heart, we are sure that this tie-up will provide immense value to Indian cities and states, which are already poised for a digital revolution.”
Smart water meters provide real-time tracking for the flow and distribution of water networks in a specified area, while also monitoring consumption and expenditure. By studying usage patterns and parameters, predicting water loss due to leakage and enhancing water utility becomes easier. Over a period of time, this also helps in directing the water resources to low-yield areas which are in need the same.
Explaining further on the significance of the tie-up, Raj Garg, Co-founder & CTO, Chariot added, “Chariot has introduced a first-of-its-kind Universal IoT platform to India, and also has to its credit executing a project in Maharashtra on Smart Water Metering. Since inception, one of our key focus areas is to help the governments in making efficient choices by leveraging the power of emerging technologies. Through this partnership, we look forward to combine Axioma’s expertise in the metering sector with our own in the IoT solutions front; the ultimate aim is to support administrative bodies and regional stakeholders to manage their water needs.”
As a digital enterprise, Chariot’s Universal IoT platform, which is agnostic to any IoT protocol and device types currently available , delivers comprehensive Platform-As-A-Service (PaaS) and Software-As-A Service (SaaS) solutions for developing and operating big data, predictive analytics, and so on. On the other hand, Axioma designs and manufactures mechanical and ultrasonic devices for heat and water metering that are exported to 36 countries across the globe; it has already established a strong presence in European countries, and posted annual turnover of approximately 25 million euros. The company will be consolidating its foothold in the Indian arena through this partnership.
