DT October Issue

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DT Wishes Happy Diwali to All

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INTERVIEW

“WE SHALL FOCUS ON INCREASING THE OUTREACH OF ASUS IN INDIA”

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ISSUE 17

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FEATURE SPECIAL

Smartphone Growth Fuels Mobile Accessories Market to Grow Exponentially

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COVER STORY

BRANDS TO CATCH UP GROWTH MOMENTUM IN FESTIVE SEASON

Everything you need to know to stop ransomware.

67% of Indian organizations were hit by ransomware in the last year.*

91% were running up-to-

date endpoint security at the time of the attack.*

Protect against Ransomware with CryptoGuard The proven CryptoGuard capabilities in Sophos Intercept X block ransomware as soon as it starts trying to encrypt your files, returning data to its original state.

“Intercept X stopped all ransomware attacks we tested against it in seconds.” - ®ESG Labs “Since deploying Intercept X we’ve had zero ransomware infections.” - ®Flexible Business Systems For more details visit www.sophos.com/intercept-x Tel: +91 79 66216838 Email: indiamarketing@sophos.com *The State of Endpoint Security Today survey was conducted by Vanson Bourne, an independent specialist in market research. This survey interviewed 2,700 IT decision makers in 10 countries out of which, 300 respondents were from India, based in Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Kolkata and Chennai.

CONTENT VOL - 0 9 , I S S U E - 17, O C TO B E R 2 018

10: LAUNCH PAD Publisher & Editor Executive Editor Consulting Editor

Rajeev Ranjan Jyoti Janda NK Goyal

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Marketing Executive Circulation

Canon Launches The Latest EOS R Full Frame Mirror Less Camera and New Line Up of Lenses (L TO R) Mr. Ishii, Vice President, Head of ICP in Canon Asia Marketing Group, Mr. Mizoguchi, Group Executive of ICB Products Group, Image Communication Products Operations, Canon Inc., Mr. Kobayashi, President & CEO, Canon India Pvt. Ltd. and Mr. Udagawa, Vice President, Consumer Imaging and Information Center, Canon India at the launch of Canon EOS-R system.

Balvinder Singh Gopal Kumar

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13: PARTNERS BUZZ Rashi Peripherals & ASUS Jointly Concluded ASUS NB Passion Event to Educate Channel Partners

18: LAPTOP SHELF ASUS Introduces Latest VivoBook 15 X510 with Intel Optane Memory in India

21: TELECOM TODAY Xiaomi India Opens its 50th Mi Home in India

30: REALLY HOT Acer Predator Orion Series Desktops

COVER STORY

BRANDS TO CATCH UP GROWTH MOMENTUM IN FESTIVE SEASON We are now into the most admired quarter of the year called ‘The Festive Quarter’, it is because many big festivals of India celebrated in this quarter. The excitement level going to be higher among everyone as festive quarter have just arrived and coming months will bring more joy.

The markets are being ready for massive footfall of customers as everyone loves to shop in this season. New stocks of extremely amazing products have been arriving at the markets which will soon go out of stock. People waits for this season to come as they buy lots of things especially technology products. Some products like Speakers, Smartphones, Laptops, Mobile Accessories, TVs, PCs, Laptops and many more products get higher attention and the demand increases very swiftly. Attractive offers/deals on products intensify the craze of shopping whether buy online or offline. This quarter remains the mainly focused quarter for many brands as they seek growth opportunities in it and plans how to leverage as more as they can. DT has compiled a very informative story on how brands are planning to leverage the growth opportunities in this festive quarter. This story will reveal the marketing strategies of many leading brands and their expectation from this quarter.

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COVER STORY

Higher Expectations As we have stepped into OND quarter, all the leading brands in Indian ICT industry are geared up to leverage upcoming opportunities with festive quarter as everyone goes to shopping within this season, everyone starts purchasing lucrative gifts for their friends and family members, lots of technology products to make their home more pretty and smart accessories for their daily uses. All brands are seeking opportunities through this window to uplift their growth and conclude this quarter on happy note.

“We have high expectations during the f e s t i v e season and judging by the response we are getting, we feel very encouraged.

Consumers who used to see the festive season as being an occasion for purchasing a new vehicle or home appliance have grown to consider technology devices as another vital need that must be accounted for. We have the strongest product portfolio and a host of offers, which gives extremely good value on purchase of Acer product” said Chandrahas Panigrahi, CMO and Consumer Business Head, Acer India. “It is not only the positive business we do but also the channel relations we build and nurture with our customers and partners during this time that makes this time of the year special.”

Commenting over their expectations with this q u a r t e r Rajshekhar B h a t t , C o u n t r y Manager, ECS said, “Though recently for India consumers spend round the year still festival quarter Q4 is very IMP for all vendors. We expect business to be good for our mini PC range LIVA in spite of the fact that $ has appreciated drastically in recent times resulting into increase in all goods getting imported into India.”

“We at GIGABYTE are very positive for the upcoming s e a s o n , as we’re launching some of our most exciting products of the year. The first is our GeForce RTX 20 series graphics cards, which were announced a month ago, and are now already available in India.

And today we are announcing our Z390 motherboard series which are also already available. The new series with enhanced thermal design enables 5GHz in all cores, a performance that will be unmatched in the industry. Both are expected to boost our sales among high-end PC enthusiasts, be it in professional or gaming segments.

In addition we have no available a series of SSDs and RGB memory products, as well as SMPS, cabinet, and various computer peripherals. Our customers are now able to build a nearly complete “AORUS PC”, we have all components except CPUs in our current portfolio. This gives us great confidence for this quarter” stated Sunil Grewal, Director, Gigabyte Technology (India) Pvt. Ltd. “The festive season of 2018 is here and we are geared up with exciting offers for customers.

This is a good opportunity for brands like Kingston and HyperX as we already enjoy a good mindshare and market share. Over the past few years, we have seen around 42% growth in sales during these festive months and we expect a similar impact this year” said Vishal Parekh, Marketing Director, Kingston Technology India. “We recently launched the Pulsefire Surge & Pulsefire Pro gaming mice from HyperX and the two Kingston products to improve the Apple experience – Kingston Bolt lightning USB & Nucleum USB type-C 7-in-1 reader. We expect these to perform well this festive season through our promotional campaigns and strong channel network.”

Rajesh Doshi, D i r e c t o r, Zebronics India Pvt. Ltd. says, “The traction is more especially if you’re l o o k i n g at Festive

season, they bring in more sales especially with our sound systems, mobile/lifestyle accessories and the whole gifting range of products. We’re expecting good sales this quarter especially with our new line up of products that are an ode to everything festive. Our just released wireless speakers like Prism and Atom are perfect for festive gifting. While Prism comes with RGB lights, which look fabulous with impeccable sound, Atom on the other hand is more for people who love having the warm glow of candle flame with a really good sound output.

People are slowly moving towards gifting tech gadgets, products like power banks, portable speakers, headphone are more popular and apt for gifting in today’s times.

We have a vast range of products under gifting range and consumers have all types of products available to them according to their budget and requirements.”

The OND quarter has always been an exciting time for our channel c o m m u n i t y, as they w i t n e s s business due to the festivals like Diwali and Christmas. The festival season is a time where consumers click large volumes of pictures and they need huge amount of digital storage to store and backup their memories. The need is for a reliable brand that offers them with the right solutions addressing these diverse needs” said Jaganathan Chelliah, Director – Channel Marketing, Western Digital, India. “Western Digital has products under several brands, including WD and SanDisk, that offer a comprehensive set of solutions for mobile and computer buyers, ranging from our external HDDs, mobile solution storage devices like Dual Drive and iXpand, to our internal SSDs and even our surveillance products. Through its various products, Western Digital aims to be the right custodian of data to help customers store their data.

“We expect normal sales in OND Qtr. as our products are for power backup and this period is of less heat and low power requirement k e e p i n g power cuts due to power shortage at lowest level. Sales of stabilizers for appliances may pick up as due to festive discounts white goods sales get a big boost” added Manoj Jain, Vice President, Microtek International Pvt. Ltd.

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“Compared to last year ( 2 0 1 7 ) , when Diwali festival fell in the month of October, this year, the festival is split over two months, October and November, as Diwali is in November this year (2018). We have observed that when this situation arises, customers tend to have better purchasing power leading to higher growth trends. We are expecting 20-25% value growth during the festive season from Sep-Nov’18 vis-à-vis corresponding period last year” commented Satish Padmanabhan, Head of Sales, Sony India.

Himanshu J a i n , Director, Acro Engineering Company added, “The OND quarter holds a special place in our annual calendar. The beginning of this quarter marks the festival season. This means that whole country is in an upbeat mood and we have a great chance to add to it. We see this as an opportunity to facilitate this season of gifts. For the IT and electronics sector this is the biggest opportunity.

People start new businesses, Get married and Celebrate mush more occasions than any other time of the year. We have great expectations from this quarter as this has been a very prosperous year for our end users and channel partners.”

Faiz Rahman, Regional ManagerIndia and Sri Lanka, STM Brands said, “With more India Centric designs, we are expecting exponential growth in Element case for iPhones. We’ve already seen positive signs during the iPhone launch. Our attach has grown 5 times compared to previous years’ data, and we are expecting to continue the momentum during this festive season.”

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Go-To-Market Strategy In the festive season season, there are lots of opportunities for vendors/partners to grow and further build larger customer base with offering best deals to customers and take care of their needs. Brands are very focused in this season to leverage the opportunities as much as they can. The strategy part plays a big role in this context as bringing beneficial offers for customers pulls them to shop.

“Instead of focusing on a particular model or range we have made the offers available on a wide set of products including Laptops, 2 in 1, convertibles and gaming notebooks. We believe in offering our customers the widest choice as possible as each will have a different need from his or her PC” said, Chandrahas Panigrahi, Acer India.

“Our Magic Box Sale offers some of the best deals on purchasing a notebook, the offer includes extended warranty, free anti-virus, EMI benefits, gifts like predator gaming mouse and Blaupunkt speakers. Our focused marketing approach on various fronts have helped generate good traction both in metros and developing markets. We believe with a strong marketing strategy and committed channel base will help us deliver record-breaking numbers this quarter.”

“As product category LIVA will be focused category for us in the quarter. We shall be launching many new products one of them being LIVA Z2V which is designed for market like India with VGA display output & HDD storage option. We plan to do few events for Channel, end client event through partner & few of the trade show participation helping people understand the value proposition offered by ECS” added Rajshekhar Bhatt, ECS. “As the leading brand in PC components in India, we are very focused to engage all verticals in this quarter: Gamers, professionals and corporate customers.

We are planning a number of events, and exciting promotions during this time, with the goal of capturing the consumer’s mindshare and loyalty both on-line and off-line” says Sunil Grewal, Gigabyte Technology (India) Pvt. Ltd. “As previously mentioned, our key focus will be promoting our new AORUS Z390 motherboard series, as well as AORUS

RTX 20 graphics cards, together with all the other components in our portfolio.

The key models I’d like to point out are Z390 AORUS XTREME and AORUS GeForce RTX 2080 Ti XTREME. These are our flagship models targeted at people who only demand the best, a segment of the market that is increasingly growing in India in the past years.”

Briefing about their overall strategies for this quarter Vishal Parekh, Kingston Technology India said, “Festive seasons are like big bonanza for lifestyle tech brands like ours. We have taken a lot of feedback from our sales partners and community for this quarter. Based on this feedback, we have devised a strategy that aims at providing the best benefits to our end users. We are working closely with both platforms to ensure that our TG is able to experience the best-inclass quality products from Kingston and HyperX, along with exciting offers.

We have tried to include nail-biting offers with products at multiple price brackets but for specific products, your readers will have to wait & watch for the upcoming offers. They can also contact us for more information.”

Rajesh Doshi, Zebronics India Pvt. Ltd. added, “The OND quarter is exciting period for whole India. We try to focus on all the product range that we have under Zebronics. As i said earlier gifting products get more traction in terms of sales than other product in this season but overall the complete product range gets a good boost.”

“Western Digital thinks in terms of creating the right conditions for data, everywhere it lives. It is critical for us to offer our consumers with solutions that address to their growing storage needs and keep them informed on what’s next.

The future is built on the continuous flow of data and we plan on rolling out several new offers for our consumers, including SanDisk microSD cards and SanDisk Ultra microSD UHS­1 cards.

These products make a perfect festive season gifting option and we expect them to fit well in the Indian market. Our external HDD range is also an optimum choice for consumers looking at creating digital photo albums, capturing every moment of this festive season. Our gaming SSDs like the recently launched WD Black NVMe SSD has also seen great acceptance in the market and is an ideal choice for consumers for gifting purpose” said Jaganathan Chelliah, Western Digital, India.

He further added “Video surveillance is another key segment to focus on during festive season. From basic safety and security to gaining insights regarding retail shopper behaviours, the surveillance segment requires storage

COVER STORY

solutions to extract value and intelligence from the captured content.

Western Digital WD Purple HDDs support 4K video performance, are designed for surveillance systems that operate 24/7, and movement of video data for smart insights. In the next few months we plan on launching several new products with new and upgraded features.”

“Our focus in on high capacity Jumbo UPS Range which we are widely publicizing using the tag line” BINA DIESEL KA GENERATOR”. The range is suitable for all big applications like, Air-Conditioner, Water Motor, Clinics, and Shopping Malls etc.

Also we have introduced complete range of Solar Products including Solar Panels, Solar UPS, Solar PCU, Solar Grid-Tied PCU and SMU. We are focusing on all solutions in solar segment as this is the fastest growing segment of today” commented Manoj Jain, Microtek International Pvt. Ltd. “This time of the year gives us a two phase opportunity. The first would be when the buyer is considering our products; we will have to place our product very aggressively (as everyone does). The second phase however, is what can make or break any brand. The utility of the product must attain satisfaction. We have been paying very close attention to our QC process to ensure that there is no compromise in the manufacturing and delivery process” said Himanshu Jain, Acro Engineering Company Faiz Rahman, STM Brands added, “With AR apps coming in for STM and Element case, sales guys on the floor and in the field feel more equipped to talk about features, specs in a more interactive way. Formulating the AR in more and more Point of Sales, and continuous training to our sales champs is our plan for next 6 months, and with more walk ins and interactions it will definitely help us to create a buzz around the iPad case, Laptop Bags, iPhone case sections. Our new Element case collection for iPhones, Mythocity Collection for Laptop Bags will be our focus products to be made available in Offline and Online channels.”

Channel Support A good channel roadmap holds the power to convert small opportunities to big opportunities and escalate the growth of a brand.

Vendors are trying to revamp their channel roadmaps and have a better co-ordination with channel partners to attain good growth rate within OND quarter. Channel

remains the best medium to reach out to potential customers and by creating best roadmap for upcoming opportunities, brands can add more revenue to their account and close the year more happily.

“We have a very clear roadmap for our partners, be it our product line-up, schemes, customer offers and training. Our regular partner meets and constant interactions with the Acer team keeps our channel partners updated and informed about Acer” says Chandrahas Panigrahi, Acer India. “Our partners have played a crucial role in positioning Acer as a leader in the technology segment and will remain the key medium to reach out to our customers.”

Rajshekhar Bhatt, ECS commented, “Channel scheme or rebate program is an ongoing thing we shall announce in the due course & you shall be updated for us to reach out to all channel across India using Digital Terminal platform.”

“We consider that channel partners are major pillars of our growth and we owe much of our success to them. Channel has always been our 1st priority and they are the first ones to receive information of our products regarding the prices and availability. We have been running schemes for channel for quite some time this year and have a couple of them still on for HyperX memory and our flash products. We have always worked with our channel partners to develop a profitable & sustainable business by providing them training, certification, specialization, business planning and marketing tools. With most our channel strategies and partner engagement activities, we try to ensure that the customer sits right at the centre of benefits. And we have worked backwards with the sales partners on creating a winwin situation” said Vishal Parekh, Kingston Technology India.

“We have a lot of schemes and offers planned for our channel partners. These are generally customised according to the regions. Recently we took around 100 partners to Dubai for 4 days trip and just a month ago more partners were taken for a UK trip. OND quarter is also very exciting for our partner and we always make sure that they get enough support for all the effort they put in to make sure that Zebronics stays “Always Ahead” added Rajesh Doshi, Zebronics India Pvt. Ltd. Jaganathan Chelliah, Western Digital, India commented “Our long-standing relationships with channel partners across the spectrum of data, has given us unique insights into how storage needs are evolving. This festive season, we plan on initiatives and training sessions for the channel ecosystem to further strengthen our association. With many touch points

PAN India, it is critical for us to ensure that we disperse the right information across geographies, in different languages to ensure efficiency in a multilingual environment.

Through our training programmes spread across key cities we plan on ensuring that this information reaches our channel partners in the most efficient manner. Along with this, we are also planning on various incentive programmes for our retailers to stock and sell our products and also display contests to showcase both WD and SanDisk products.”

Manoj Jain, Microtek International Pvt. Ltd. says “Our focus in on promotional offers for our channel partners to boost the sales. The schemes are designed area-wise as per the requirement of the region.”

“In its endeavour to further uplift the festive fervour, Sony India will be introducing attractive consumer promotion offers across key product categories. With exciting festive offers, easy finance schemes and marketing promotion activities, Sony India aims to achieve positive sales figures during this season” stated Satish Padmanabhan, Sony India. Customers can take home assured gifts with purchase of select Sony BRAVIA TVs, Home Theatres and Digital Imaging products. More and more customers are now opting for finance schemes for two basic reasons, no cost to customers and affordability. During the festive season, customers can also avail special finance scheme through Bajaj Finserv, Capital First HDB financial services and HDFC bank with down payment of just Re. 1 at no extra processing fees. Various EMI options are also available on select credit card through pine labs terminal.”

“The short answer will be ‘Yes, there will be some amazing schemes for this festive season’. But that all is to be disclosed at a later stage. Our current roadmap is to gear up for an epic quarter. Our team is full of humans so it goes without saying that spirits will be running high and we aim to capitalise on that energy. The team will be in a good mood and we plan to keep it that way. We spend a great amount of time to prepare for this quarter. We’re going to be creative, we’re going to be aggressive, and we’re going to have a great time doing so” commented Himanshu Jain, Acro Engineering Company.

Faiz Rahman, STM Brands stated, “Both Element Case and STM will be available in major OT chains like Croma and Reliance Digital. Apart from it we are in talks with Airport stores since our product line is more suited to frequent travelers. Yes, we work closely with partners on schemes, and plan to continue with more aggressive schemes this festive season.”

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LAUNCH PAD

Canon Launches The Latest EOS R Full Frame Mirror Less Camera and New Line Up of Lenses Continuing its commitment to innovation, Canon India announces the launch of its latest innovation in the imaging industry-the EOS R system. This technology is the organisations extension to the three decade old legacy of the path breaking EOS system.

The EOS R is Canon’s first 35mm full frame CMOS sensor mirror less camera that features an electronic viewfinder. Equipped with various other pioneering features like advanced Dual pixel CMOS AF, Digic 8 imaging processor, High density AF points positions, Multi-function slider bar, Flexible AE Mode, High speed data communication RF mount, the camera is set to become the future of imaging and bring forth to users an epitome of image quality never seen before.

Along with the camera, the imaging leader has unveiled a series of lenses; four new RF lenses, two super telephoto EF lenses and one prime EF-M lens. Allowing users the flexibility of using their existing EF lenses with the new EOS R, four type of RF mount adapters have been introduced to complete the EOS R ecosystem.

Present for the launch in India, Mr. Yoshiyuki Mizoguchi, Group Executive - ICB Products Group, Canon Inc. said, “Being one of the global leaders in the imaging space, Canon has always kept innovation at the forefront, enabling technology to compliment the art of photography. For over 30 years the legendary EOS system has given photographers and filmmakers the benchmark for high quality imagery.

Taking the legacy of the EOS system ahead, EOS R is a surprise package to address the evolving imaging requirements of professional photographers and filmmakers.

With its exemplary features like the new RF mount, advanced dual pixel CMOS AF and 4K ultra high definition, it is a marvel designed to complement and expand the creative horizons of its users.”

India has played a key role in the growth journey of Canon’s imaging business and I am glad to be here today to witness the launch of the new EOS R system, or the future of imaging as we call it,” added Mr. Mizoguchi.

Mr. Kazutada Kobayashi, President & CEO, Canon India said, “Ever since our inception in India, we have been committed to our diverse customer base with our expansive product portfolio. Furthering our dedication,

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(L TO R) Mr. Ishii, Vice President, Head of ICP in Canon Asia Marketing Group, Mr. Mizoguchi, Group Executive of ICB Products Group, Image Communication Products Operations, Canon Inc., Mr. Kobayashi, President & CEO, Canon India Pvt. Ltd. and Mr. Udagawa, Vice President, Consumer Imaging and Information Center, Canon India at the launch of Canon EOS-R system.

we are proud to bring to our audience the new EOS R system, equipped with groundbreaking functionalities never seen before.

With this launch, users are being equipped with limitless possibilities, further pushing the boundaries of technology, innovation and design. Today’s launch is also accompanied with two new EF lenses from super telephoto category and one prime lens from EF-M Category, offering the best of our imaging universe to customers. We foresee the EOS R system contributing significantly to the growth of our imaging business in the country, enabling us to maintain our No.1 share in the combined DSLR and mirrorless market.”

Mr. Eddie Udagawa, Vice President, Consumer Imaging and Information Centre, Canon India, said, “At Canon India, we strive to bring forth the ultimate shooting experience for customers, thereby expanding new possibilities for storytellers.

With performance and quality at its core, the new Canon EOS R system comes equipped with the revolutionary 54mm mount, the

latest DIGIC 8 processor and focus speed of 0.05seconds, making it all set to further evolve the photography culture in the country. It has a compact body making full use of the mirrorless mechanism and can respond to the high demand of still image and movie shooting. With the intuitive way of shooting and enhanced operational ease, we are positive this launch will empower photographers and filmmakers to accomplish higher levels of quality and detail to their stories, enabling them to rethink and reimagine mirror less photography.”

The EOS R will be available in India at the price of EOS R Body: INR 189,950.00/U (inclusive of all taxes) EOS R kit (with RF24-105mm f/4L IS USM Lens): INR 278,945.00/U (inclusive of all taxes)

India’s Leading Communications, Broadcast, IT & Technology Show

Digital India - Connecting the Unconnected

Pragati Maidan, New Delhi, India

29-31 January 2019 Co-located with

OK BO R YOUCE SPA W! NO

Backbone of NextGen Technology

Highlights

685 20,000 Visitors

Participants

28

Countries

180 1230 Delegates

Speakers

Technologies on Display Telecom | Broadcast | Satcom | Internet of Things (IoT) | Embedded Systems | Virtual Reality (VR) Augmented Reality (AR) | Wearable Tech | Blockchain | Artificial Intelligence (AI) | Mobile Devices Machine Learning (ML) | Drones | Robotics | Electronic Manufacturing Service

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For Exhibition & Conference, please contact: Mr. Yash Menghani, Senior Manager, yashm@eigroup.in Tel: +91 11 4279 5077 | Fax: +91 11 4279 5098

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220mm x 305mm.indd 1

19-06-2018 PM 01:10:33

LAUNCH PAD

HP Launches HP ENVY x360 Thin and Light Laptop with Stunning Design HP Inc. launched the HP ENVY x360 – a sleek, stylish convertible powered by the AMD® Ryzen™ Processor in India. It is built specifically for the millennial prosumers who want a device that can do it all and keep up with their demanding lifestyle – whether at home or work.

The HP ENVY x360 is a thin and light device with power packed features that meet individuals’ personal style and specific computing needs for professional use. It features the all new HP Command Center which enables users to optimize system performance, fan noise and temperature with CoolSense technology.

The device supports Gigabit Wi-Fi speeds, to provide fast internet connections for demanding streaming apps for movies, music, and gaming. The unique design of the laptop draws inspiration from hand crafted pieces that feature the Damascus pattern - a high precision technique used in manufacturing specialty knives, known to be tough and durable.

“In continuum with our strategy of Core, Growth and Future, we expand our product portfolio to meet evolving consumer demands. The new HP ENVY x360 is designed and built for millennials who want their products to keep up with their dynamic lifestyle and work,” said Sumeer Chandra, Managing Director, HP Inc. India.

“At HP, we believe in insights-driven innovation that enables us to deliver the PC experiences that users want.

As a new addition to our premium products portfolio, the HP Envy x360 is a combination of stylish, sleek design, optimum performance and quality, at an affordable cost.” said Vickram Bedi, Senior Director, Personal Systems, HP Inc. India.

HP ENVY x360 is available in Dark Ash Silver with the unique angular Damascus pattern, multi-threaded processing, powerful integrated graphics, thin bezel and edgeto-edge backlit keyboard. This convertible maximizes the user’s experience with four productive modes and allows seamless shifts according to creative outputs – writings, drawings, videos, designs and more.

The new HP ENVY x360 gives you the freedom to go anywhere life takes you.

Specific features include: •

Premium and sleek design: With an all metal design, it is offered in Dark Ash

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Vickram Bedi, Senior Director, Personal Systems, HP Inc. India at the Envy x360 launch

was inspired by the needs of today’s busy commuter with weather-resistant zippers and fabric.

Silver with a unique angular Damascus pattern •

•

•

Built for mobility: AMD® Ryzen™ Mobile processor gives outstanding performance up to 12.5 hours of battery life, charging from zero percent battery life to 50 percent on 45 minutes charge with HP Fast Charge technology, up to NVMe™ SSD of lightning-fast storage, this full-performance PC is engineered for limitless power for work or play.

The Corning®Gorilla® Glass NBT™ touchscreen has highly intuitive reaction, with HP Active Pen for a seamless and natural work experience, and Windows Quick and safe logins through Windows Hello, as well as video chat with HP Wide Vision FHD IR camera. Experience natural computing that’s designed for your on-the-go life.

Revolutionary Radeon™ “Vega” graphics computing engines combined with ultra-bright FHD micro-edge display, Quad HP Speakers from Bang & Olufsen, and HP Audio Boost offers next level entertainment.

HP also showcased other products and accessories like: •

•

•

•

HP Pavilion Tower 590- The sleek looking desktop comes with the latest Quad-Core AMD Ryzen™ 5 processor and advanced AMD Radeon RX 550 dedicated graphics. This gives the users the speed and power to create, save and share, HP Pavilion 15- This ultra-thin 15inch laptop has a narrow bezel and is the thinnest & most powerful Pavilion by HP. The device supports a metal body with an hourglass design and an enhanced lift hinge for improved thermals and ease of typing.

HP 15 Notebook- The all new HP has metal finished design and silver keyboard deck with palm rest. The laptop has an impressive battery life of 13 hours and supports fast charging-50% in 45 minutes.

HP ENVY Urban Sleeve- Carry. Commute.

Protect. Perfectly tailored for travel and organizing your technology, this sleeve

•

HP ENVY Urban Backpack - Your next adventure calls for a backpack that keeps up with it all. Charge your devices and organize everyday essentials with innovative compartments with minimal design and maximum durability.

•

HP ENVY Urban Top-load- Designed for meticulous organization. Easily add a lock to interlocking water-resistant zippers for added security.

•

HP ENVY Urban Tote- Work, play, commute and carry it all. Product made with 90% split-leather, 10% polyurethane coated leather accents and nylon twill exterior with microfiber interior.

Pricing and Availability HP ENVY X360 and other products mentioned below will be available at HP World stores and with leading e-commerce players.

•

HP ENVY x360 with AMD® Ryzen™ R3 processor will be available from November onwards for a starting price of INR 60990

•

HP Pavilion 15 with AMD® Ryzen™ R5 processor will be available from November onwards for a starting price of INR 62990

•

HP 15 Notebook with AMD® Ryzen™ R3 processor is available now at a starting price of INR 36990

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HP Pavilion Tower 590 is available at a starting price of INR 22990 + GST

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HP ENVY Urban Sleeve is priced at INR 1999

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HP ENVY Urban Backpack is priced at INR 4999

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HP ENVY Urban Top-load is priced at INR 3999

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HP ENVY Urban Tote is priced at INR 4499

PARTNERS BUZZ

Rashi Peripherals & ASUS Jointly Concluded ASUS NB Passion Event to Educate Channel Partners Rashi Peripherals, and Asus recently concluded the Asus NB Passion event. The five-city event was aimed at educating channel partners on Asus Notebook business. During the event, partners were given in-depth training on latest product offerings. The representatives from Asus and Rashi Peripherals offered them an expert guidance on the right market pitch for earning better ROI. Mr. Mihir Talekar, Business Manager at Rashi Peripherals said, “The objective of the five city partner meet was to grow the passion quotient among partners for the Asus Notebook business and have deeper engagement with them. Asus NB Passion was a platform to connect with partners, understand their views and aspirations in order to give them best possible support. We want to ensure that our partners are well-updated on the current market and technology trends. We will continue to organize such events and provide them value-added services.”

The event organized in five cities namely Nasik, Pune, Gurgaon, Siliguri and Nagpur received an overwhelming response from partners.

Compuage and Microsoft Successfully Conducted Channel Partner Meet in Mumbai Compuage recently conducted channel partner meet in association with Microsoft for its Cloud Partners in Mumbai. The objective of the event was to bring in digital transformation for partners doing Microsoft business with Compuage. The session was conducted by Mr. Mohammed Sadiq Pasha from Microsoft, Mr. Sushant Ranshur and Mr. Chirag Shah from Compuage. The session highlighted topics for digital enablement of partners, how they can benefit from various incentives and schemes offered. 30+ partners attended the same and appreciated the efforts as the session helped them to understand road map ahead for Microsoft business. Atul H Mehta, Chairman& MD, Compuage Infocom Limited said, “Engaging with our partners is an important step in engaging with end-customers. It is crucial to get a feel of the on-ground realities from the partners & such meets are a great way to stay connected. We expect growth of the company and in return growth of the partners in the year ahead.”

Kaspersky Lab Hosted Partner Meet with its National B2B Distributor in Chennai Kaspersky Lab concluded a successful partner meet with its national B2B distributor eCAPS Computers. The meet was held on September 6 at the Hilton Chennai. A total of 34 partner companies, and over 50 participants came together for the event that saw the top management from both the companies engage on future growth plans. Kaspersky Lab led the discussions focused on product overviews and channel strategies to pave the growth for Kaspersky’s India market. New B2B products & services from Kaspersky Lab were discussed in great detail, with its enterprise offerings getting a bulk of the interaction time. The growth and market strategies and plans for the coming quarter were discussed too, as Kaspersky Lab’s looks to foray deeper in India’s smaller towns and cities. Mr. Anand Shringi, Channel Head – South Asia, Kaspersky Lab said, “We’ve built our network in India piece by piece through partner meets, with great support from all team members. The focus of this partner meet with our B2B distributor was to discuss our new products, share updates on our current portfolio and discuss channel strategies.”

Prysm Enters Into Distribution Agreement with Inflow Technologies

Mr. GB Kumar, Vice-President, Asia-Pacific, Prysm Inc & Mr. Byju Pillai, CEO, Inflow Technologies

Prysm, Inc. announced a distribution agreement with Inflow Technologies. With this agreement, Inflow Technologies will distribute and support Prysm’s entire product portfolio, including its new large format displays, the Laser Phosphor Display (LPD) 6K Series, to customers across India. “Inflow Technologies is pleased to partner with Prysm, adding the company’s cutting edge LPD 6K large format displays and collaboration software products to our offering of enterprise IT and audio visual solutions. We see the Prysm LPD 6K as an industry leading solution for board rooms, customer experience centers, and command and control centers,” said Byju Pillai, CEO, Inflow Technologies. “We continue to bring the latest technology offerings to the marketplace, and are excited to share Prysm’s products to enable Indian enterprise leaders to make faster, better decisions with the new stunning and immersive solution.”

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FEATURE SPECIAL

Smartphone Growth Fuels Mobile Accessories Market to Grow Exponentially

Indian telecom industry doesn’t need any introduction to be justified as it is one of the biggest markets across the world. The massive growth is attracting many big brands so they are penetrating to Indian market with variety of products. The influence of smartphones in day to day life has increased because of the multiple uses like entertainment, ease of doing many personal & official work etc. In short smartphones have become an indispensable part of human life. With this regard, smartphone accessories have also created a space near us, there are a lot of smartphone accessories available in the market which are making our life easier and amusing.

Some accessories like headphones, powerbanks, portable speakers, smartwatches, memory cards, Bluetooth devices, selfie sticks have massive demand in the market. Moreover, the purchasing power of consumers has increased which has shifted their focus from low range to mid-range and high range mobile accessories.

Increased trend of online shopping has also triggered the demand of mobile accessories. The rise of overall mobile accessories market is influenced by many factors which are shifting the interest of consumers from feature phones to smartphones. With the increase in market size and overall growth, the numbers of brands in the market is also increasing. The never-ending competition among mobile accessories companies have brought down the price that has pushed the growth of this market. To dig-out the significants of this market DT has drafted an industry story to know more about this enormous growth opportunity.

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Growth of Mobile Accessories Market The growth rate of Indian mobile accessories market has been increasing from past few years and the market has gain quite good momentum. There are several fuelling factors which are playing major role in the growth of this market, these factors may include Adoption of smartphones, increased mediums of entertainment, versatile use of smartphone, exceptional innovations in this segment etc.

Primarily massive adoption rate of smartphones helping this market to further grow as mobile accessories are helping customers to explore the usability of smartphones.

“If we look at the mobile accessories market it has been scaling up ever since the market for mobiles have been growing at good pace in India.

Nowadays mobiles have become main computing devices for many, now people are looking at mobile accessories that not just support their phone but are compact, light and versatile.

The accessories market has seen a steady growth with the influx of products that have not only become essential but are paving way in becoming a mark of style and personality” says Rajesh Doshi, Director, Zebronics India Pvt. Ltd. “The factors that are playing a vital role in the growth of this market is versatility products that offer more than a specific need they’re built for, take for instance our 5 port docking up , a product that also features a detachable LED lamp that serves two purposes. Consumers have a lot of choice in terms of buying ever since the mobile market scaled the accessories market, it is all about meeting the demand of the consumers offering products that are multi-functional, good on aesthetics and price factor.”

“India has seen a sharp rise in mobile users in India.

Primarily due to high consumer base of mobile users, technology advancement in Mobiles and change in lifestyle. The Multi usage of Mobile, especially for entertainment, Audio & video usage are vital points of increase in this market. The end users now uses their mobile as multiple usage specially for entertainment and other usage, which gives a very good opportunity for Mobile accessories in India in near future” stated Himanshu Jain, CEO, ANT Audio.

Goutam Kumar Jain, Co-founder and Director, M-tech Informatics Pvt. Ltd. commented, “As per a Research Nester report, the Indian mobile phone accessories market is anticipated to clock a CAGR of 10.5% till 2024. The market is expected to reach USD 3.54 Billion by the end of 2024 up

from USD 1.42 Billion in 2016. A young population coupled with affordable smartphones and rising disposable incomes are driving this growth.

The study suggested that multi-brand stores are trending as the most-preferred distribution channel for buying mobile phone accessories in India.

“North India will continue to dominate by accounting for more than 30% of the market revenues, while South Indian states and West Indian states will collectively account for half of India’s mobile phone accessories revenues by the end of 2026.”

“The mobile accessories market in India has been seeing the positive trend and is growing consistently.

As per research and forecast firms, India mobile phone accessories market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10.5% over the forecast period i.e.

2017-2024. Further, the market for mobile phone accessories was valued at USD 1.42 Billion in 2016 and is projected to garner USD 3.54 Billion by the end of 2024” added Ameen Khwaja, Founder and CEO, PTron.

“Factor such as rising young age population, increasing penetration of smartphone among masses, cheaper internet data plans, increased digital content consumption, growing demand for technologically advanced mobile accessories, along with increasing R&D investments in wireless connectivity is expected to further boost India mobile accessories market in the coming five years.”

Yap Imm Ai, Senior Marketing Manager, SEA & India, Targus says, “Currently, the market in India is witnessing a steady rise, with protective cases and wireless chargers in huge demand. Customers’ inclination towards ease and comfort has majorly led to the grasp of wireless accessories on the market and this is expected to last for the coming years as well. We believe the dynamic world of technological products with its constant advancements provides the accessories market room to grow and expand with it.”

“We believe that there is tremendous growth.

The portable Bluetooth speaker category is growing dynamically in India, thanks to the huge consumption of audio and video on smartphones. Growing demand for mobility, the rise of connected devices and the increasing penetration of Wi-Fi networks are making wireless connectivity a standard feature in urban households and X-mini has always been in the forefront of portable sound” added Keith Wong, Chief Operating Officer, X-Mini.

FEATURE SPECIAL

Growth Plan Having a strategic roadmap is very important while seeking good growth opportunities. Strong roadmap helps in achieving the long-term goals which is very crucial to sustain in the market.

In the mobile accessories market there are huge opportunities as the market is steadily growing. Various brands are stepping into this market by introducing high-end mobile accessories so the competition is also increasing. Being ahead in this competition requires expertize in the skills and a robust marketing plan.

“The roadmap to utilize growth opportunities within this market is to also know what the future holds. We’ve planned to utilize growth opportunities by looking at the trend of how mobile are going and adding product range which compliments the mobile phones for example take our 6 in 1 powerbank Esteem which apart from being a powerbank is also a wireless speaker, torch, an FM an all in one gadget which people will find useful” says Rajesh Doshi, Zebronics India Pvt. Ltd. “We are going to launch products like wireless chargers soon.

Consumers are on the constant lookout for products that are compact, multi-functional and yet add to their style statement.”

“At ANT Audio, we are committed to provide best quality at competitive or affordable range to our customer. We are continuously increasing number of SKU/ models in ANT Audio to provide variety to our customers to explore with especially with Movies, Music, lifestyle lowers. With promising growth ahead, we seek to facilitate the mobile entertainment sector” stated Himanshu Jain, ANT Audio.

“Through Nexez, M-tech hopes to capture a significant part of this burgeoning market and be the preferred brand in the affordable mobile accessories segment.

The company plans to leverage its existing network of 600+ distribution center, 20,000 retailers and 700+ service centers to ramp up sales and effectively serve its customers” added Goutam Kumar Jain, M-tech Informatics Pvt. Ltd. Ameen Khwaja, PTron commented, “We have a brand called ‘PTron’ which is into mobile accessories and tech gadgets. We manufacture and sell world class mobile accessories like wired headsets, Bluetooth headsets, Bluetooth speakers, chargers & cables, and smart gadgets. We are in the process of making PTron a global mobile accessories brand. Our products are already available on multiple Indian and global e-commerce websites like LatestOne. com, Flipkart, Amazon, and AliExpress.

PTron products are also available in stores through the wholesale distribution channel.

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FEATURE SPECIAL

We presently have 40 distributors covering 12 states in India. Based on SKUs and number of units sold PTron has emerged as a largest Indian mobile accessories company.”

“Accessories are as important as the main product itself i.e. the laptop, notebook and mobile phone. They are required to effectively maintain and connect products. The plethora of options available for laptops and mobile phones provide huge opportunities for the accessories market. With a heritage rooted in the mobility of on-the-go-professionals, our plan is to advance the mobile accessories category with cutting-edge, quality-made, productivity-boosting solutions. Thus, we aim to develop more innovative products that makes customers’ mobile lifestyle easier and more productive” said Yap Imm Ai, Targus.

Keith Wong, X-Mini says, “We look to work with local partners to list on as many platforms in India, like Amazon. Having Indian-centric marketing like featuring local culture in advertisements and getting local reviews as well as making quality audio products for Indian market at affordable price points.”

Overall Product Portfolio Today the market is full of amazing mobile accessories and daily new innovations are taking place, customers have become very smart and they choose only those products that lasts long. Every brand is producing high-end products but the challenge is to keep such products within affordability. Many leading brands have come-up with wide range of products with an expectation of better sale.

“Our mobile accessories range includes portable wireless speaker, headphones, and earphones. Multi-faceted power banks, charging cables, charging docks. To shortly put it our range is vast yet diverse. There are a lot of products in our portable wireless speaker range like splash, Axel and Buddy whose design will promptly remind you about yesteryears and they are perfect for the outdoors with a built in handle. The output from our speaker range is really loud” says Rajesh Doshi, Zebronics India Pvt. Ltd. “We’re introducing many products like different portable wireless speakers that talk about texture, finish, colors with sound being the most important aspect. We have introduced a wireless earphone called ‘Peace’ it comes with no strings attached, literally meaning it’s a stand alone headset that can be used for music and calls. We have powerbank that enable a quick charge. We are also going to launch a lot more in terms wired/wireless earphone and headphone gear. We’re also known for having a vast variety of cable range.”

Himanshu Jain, ANT Audio commented, “In ANT Audio, currently we are coming up with in ear phone segment in India which can be further sub divided in two segment of wired and wireless. Our all models are selling very successfully among our customer. H82 (wireless ), H56 ( wired), Dual driver W59 Series are couple of hit models we are selling,

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besides our other models. At Ant Audio, we are committed to provide new technologies to our customer regularly for which we keep on doing R&D and bring latest innovation in market. Currently we have launched Doble W Dual driver series in our portfolio and we are further planning to bring more models in coming months.”

“Nexez will introduce products across 10 categories in the current financial year and to begin with, will roll out products spanning 5 categories including Headphone, Earphone, Bluetooth Speaker, Power Bank and USB cable & Charger” said Goutam Kumar Jain, M-tech Informatics Pvt. Ltd. Ameen Khwaja, PTron added “Consumer demands and needs are different for different geographies in India. However, as per our observation, headsets, Bluetooth speakers and charging devices are promising categories. Like I mentioned earlier, we have our own brand ‘PTron’ and we launch 1-2 new products every month. We will have new launches in portable mobile audio accessories in the coming months.”

“Our motto and aim are to provide products to our consumers that are durable, innovative and compact at the same time. For the past 35 years, we have believed in this motto and have tried to develop accessories that stay true to it. Considering the Indian market, we take immense pride in stating that Targus’s products have been received very well by our consumers. Our products like wireless mouse, Bluetooth keyboard, protective cases and USB hubs have received and are still receiving a tremendous response from the consumers. Due to these products faring extremely well in the market, we have rose to become one of the leading accessories brands. We have been working on developing a wide range of product portfolio that includes backpacks, tablet cases, docking stations, IT accessories and have received an overwhelming response from our customers across the globe” says Yap Imm Ai, Targus.

Keith Wong, X-Mini stated “We already have our portable Bluetooth speakers in the Indian market, and are now looking to offer quality audio products that are designed for personal audio enjoyment such as earbuds in the next few months.”

Major Challenges for Brands The increased penetration of brands within this market has created chaos and different challenges for themselves too. Few major challenges remain the concern for this market to grow further.

Everyone has to face these challenges and prepare a plan to overcome such challenges like durability, affordability, market condition, competition, government policies etc.

“There are so many products available in the segment, you have to make sure that all the products are compatible with each other, it is a big challenge. This segment moves and changes very fast, you have to keep up the pace with the new technology. There are a lot of non-branded products in the unorganized market, they attract the customer because

of the low cost but in the long term they are not reliable neither provide good user experience” commented Rajesh Doshi, Zebronics India Pvt. Ltd. “As a brand of masses, we always keep on challenging ourselves to give the best value for money that our customers will love. Also making sure that get best quality and aesthetically appealing product. We provide 1 year warranty in all our products, this is handled by 128+ service centers across the country.”

“The biggest challenge we have seen is diversification. India has a wide range of demands when it comes to audio preferences. From form factor, to noise isolation, to battery life, to product weight, to Bass-treble balance. Luckily, Ant Audio has spared no expense in exploring every possible combination” says Himanshu Jain, ANT Audio.

Goutam Kumar Jain, M-tech Informatics Pvt. Ltd. said “As far as challenges are concerned for branded Mobile accessories, the big unorganized grey market is a problem to be addressed.”

“The biggest challenge for any mobile accessories brand comes from cheap and unreliable grey market products. Consumers, until now, picked up the cheapest possible accessory from the shelf. With growing brand awareness amongst Millennials and Gen Z consumers, we are seeing a shift. However, there are not many brands which fall under branded yet affordable category. PTron is here to fill this gap. Our products go through 5-levels of quality check. We offer warranty on our products. With all this, we are still able to price our products right, because we have dedicated manufacturing facilities for the same. For a small premium, our consumer enjoys peace of mind that the cheaper grey market products do not offer” commented Ameen Khwaja, PTron.

Yap Imm Ai, Targus says “Considering a market like India, 70% of its population resides in rural areas thereby resulting in the adoption rate of mobile accessories being low. This is largely due to budgetary constraints and low adaptability to complicated devices as most of the consumers there use basic products.

With the emergence of Digital India, we hope to see a positive change and an ease of doing business in this market. Another major challenge is Grey market offerings. We have witnessed brand conscious consumers being inclined toward grey market products thereby decreasing sales of the original products. However, we believe that challenges always bring opportunities. With India’s increasing exposure to international education, technology products, and an uplift in the lifestyle choices of the new generation, we’re confident Targus will be a desired brand in India.”

Keith Wong, X-Mini added “The high import duties that might make the price not super affordable to the locals. That said, we know that India is a music loving country which presents a huge potential for quality audio products – and we are proud to offer this quality sound in every X-mini product we create!”

LAPTOP SHELF

ASUS Introduces Latest VivoBook 15 X510 with Intel Optane Memory in India The latest innovation by ASUS is exceptional and well developed as it gives unmatched experience to its users with its astonishing features. VivoBook X510 features 4GB RAM +16GB intel optane total 20GB system memory and NVIDIA® GeForce® MX130 graphics. ASUS VivoBook 15 UX510 is extremely portable, owing to its thin and light design.

ASUS announced the perfect combination of beauty and performance with its latest Intel® Optane™ Memory equipped VivoBook X510 in India. A Windows 10 laptop that is powered by the latest Generation Intel® Core™ i5 processor, VivoBook X510 features 4GB RAM +16GB intel optane total 20GB system memory and NVIDIA® GeForce® MX130 graphics. Ideal for daily computing and entertainment, ASUS VivoBook X510 flaunts large capacity of HDD with 1 TB storage. Taking performance to the next level, it offers one-touch access via the fingerprint sensor.

Commenting on the launch, Arnold Su, ROG & PC Head, ASUS India said, “We are delighted to announce VivoBook X510 in India. It’s the first Asus laptop in the line up to have Intel Optane Memory. It accelerates performance enhancing multitasking ability with zero lag experience.

The aesthetically appealing range of laptop combines the effortless performance with powerful features. Perfect for the generation that’s always on the move, the VivoBook X510 offers immersive viewing, longer battery life and super-fast charging. We are optimistic that the young professionals and college goers would respond unequivocally to our latest offering and look forward to a positive response.”

Intel® Optane™ Memory Technology:

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Enjoy a faster, smoother, and amazingly responsive computing experience with Intel® Optane™ memory, a smart, adaptable system accelerator enhancing the speed of multi-tasking with smoother and seamless load levels thus leading to better hard disk performance. It provides the best of both worlds with affordable performance leading to task acceleration.

NanoEdge Full-HD Display with 7.8mm Slim Bezel & 80% Screen to Body Ratio: The ultrathin bezel of NanoEdge display ensures a Full HD display of this 15.6inch laptop. Furthermore, users are treated with an immersive viewing experience, owing to the 7.8mm bezel on the NanoEdge display, offering an 80% screen-to-body ratio. It is well supported by a 178° wide-view technology, thus ensuring optimum colours and contrast, even when viewed from sharp angles.

Optimum battery life and fast charging: The portability of ASUS VivoBook 15 X510 is well-supported by an optimal battery life, lasting for 8 hours. Besides, the battery charges fast, reaching 60% in just 49 minutes. This has been enabled with ASUS SuperBattery technology, providing a 3X longer lifespan than the standard lithiumion cylinder batteries.

Thin and lightweight:

Availability:

ASUS VivoBook 15 UX510 is extremely portable, owing to its thin and light design.

Weighing merely 1.7 kg, its cuts a sharp 19.4mm profile. The compactness and lightweight makes it easier to carry along, thus a perfect solution for today’s young crowd that’s always on-the-move.

Vivobook 15 X510 is available offline at Asus exclusive stores and other retail outlets.

Pricing: It’s priced at Rs.45, 990 only.

LAPTOP SHELF

Dell Launches its Latest Addition to The Inspiron Family “Dell Inspiron 15 7572” The new Inspiron 15 7572 offers the best quality of entertainment to users with seamlessly integrated operations and is apt for those who desire a sleek laptop with a brilliant design and latest features. It comes with Infinity Edge display with brilliant FHD resolution (1920x1080) and IPS wide-viewing angle.

Dell in India announced the launches of the stunning ultra slim notebook, Dell Inspiron 15 7572. Addressing the evolving technology needs of today’s individual consumers, Dell India brings a tailor made Inspiron, with an option to customize color, software and services, intended to offer a more personalized user experience.

that can be viewed at any angle and firm keyboard that is easy to type on for hours.

Exclusively available to purchase on www. dell.co.in, the latest addition to the Inspiron family, comes with an impressively strong performance, long battery life, wireless connectivity and a brilliant display which proves to be the perfect alternative for consumers who are constantly on the move. The new Inspiron 15 7572 offers the best quality of entertainment to users with seamlessly integrated operations and is apt for those who desire a sleek laptop with a brilliant design and latest features.

Configured with an incredibly accurate touchpad, sharp high resolution display

Key features:

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For a more spectacular cinematic experience, earlier this year ‘Dell Cinema’ brought CinemaStream and CinemaSound technology, which is available on the Inspiron 15 7572.

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Attractive design and features: Infinity Edge display with brilliant FHD resolution (1920x1080) and IPS wide-viewing angle. The expansive screen with the thin bezels offers crisp, detailed picture on-screen from every angle.

Power packed performance: Equipped with Intel® 8th gen Corei5/Ci7 Quad Core CPUs that handles most tasks

thrown at it with ease. NVIDIA® GeForce® MX150 discrete graphics option with up to 4GB GDDR5 memory which provides additional graphics muscle and easily handles gaming titles while providing an immersive onscreen experience.

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Precision touchpad for seamless use: High resolution touchpad for more fluid panning, pinching and zooming, for an experience that’s touchscreensmooth and quick.

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Best video and audio experience: All Inspiron laptops feature SmartByte and Maxx Audio® Pro for the best video and audio experience.

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Color themes: Available in silver and gold color options to add to its premium look.

TELECOM TODAY

Xiaomi India Opens its 50th Mi Home in India

Airtel Launches Network Expansion Plans for UP and Uttarakhand Bharti Airtel announced massive network roll-out plans for Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Uttarakhand with the aim of enhancing customer experience as well as expanding high speed data and voice services to deep rural pockets. As a part of its network expansion program – Project LEAP, during FY 19 Airtel plans to deploy more than 17,313new mobile sites along with 6,650KMs of fresh optic fiber across the two states. The deployment will create significant high speed data and voice capacity within the network to serve the explosive surge in mobile usage, driven by affordable smartphones and tariffs.

Customers will be able to enjoy superior network coverage – indoor and outdoor - thanks to deployment of cutting edge technology solutions. With a deployed base of 43,219sites at the end of FY 17-18, this planned rollout would grow Airtel’s network in UP and Uttarakhand by 40% to 60,532 further enhancing the speeds and voice qualities.

Xiaomi launched its Mi Home Experience Store in India. Located in the Xiaomi head office building on the ground floor, the new Mi Home Experience Store spans over 2000 sq. ft, and will be the 50th Mi Home in India. This Mi Home outlet is a Company Owned and Company Operated (COCO) store, indicating the brand’s rapid progress in developing innovative retail measures while further enhancing customer experience. The company recently opened its first COCO store in Vashi, Navi Mumbai, after the government allowed 100% automated SBRT. This new Mi Home Experience store reflects Xiaomi’s enthusiasm to add more value towards building innovative retail segment in India. First of its kind, the new Mi Home will seamlessly integrate retail efforts ranging from supply-chain management to product availability and delivery measures, by bringing it entirely under the brand’s governance. Xiaomi India will oversee every retail process of this store, thus enabling complete brand transparency.

Vodafone Idea Joins Hand with Paytm to Delight Its Prepaid Customers

Vodafone Idea Limited announced a partnership with Paytm to offer a unique proposition to its prepaid customers. This partnership offers Vodafone and Idea customers exclusive cashback offers and exciting vouchers on recharging through Paytm. Vodafone and Idea prepaid customers who transact for the first time on Paytm, can avail an assured cashback of Rs. 25 on a minimum recharge of Rs. 149 done through Paytm while existing Paytm users can enjoy cashback of Rs. 20. Additionally, customers will get vouchers worth Rs. 375 from Paytm which can be used to buy movie tickets and to shop on Paytm Mall. Vodafone Idea Limited is committed to create a truly ‘Digital India’ by enabling millions of citizens to connect, join the digital revolution and build a better tomorrow. It will accelerate India’s progression towards a digital economy with a portfolio of quality products and services on offer under both its popular and loved brands - Vodafone and Idea.

Honor Introduces ‘Honor 8X’ Smartphone with a Dual AI 20MP + 2MP Rear Camera Honor, the sub-brand of Huawei, expanded its X series portfolio of smartphones with the launch of Honor 8X. Powered by OctaCore Kirin 710, the smartphone features a 16.51cm Full View notch display with 91% screen-to-body ratio and a 2.5D double texture aurora glass body with grating effect.

Priced at INR 18999 (6GB+128GB variant), the all new Honor 8X will be available in blue, black and red color exclusively on Amazon. in. Honor 8X is powered by the latest Octa-core Kirin 710 chipset with a 12nm Cortex-A73 generation-based SoC which supports the AI functionality. The all new 8X comes in 3 variants - 6GB + 128GB, 6GB + 64GB and 4GB + 64GB with an option of expanding the internal storage up to 400GB using a dedicated MicroSD card Slot. It is equipped with Dual VoLTE and packs a high capacity 3750mAh large battery. Honor 8X comes with a dual AI 20MP + 2MP rear with F/1.8 aperture and 16MP front facing camera.

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TELECOM TODAY

Lenovo Launches Two New Smartphones Lenovo K9 & A5 in India

Paytm Tests Face Login on Android Beta App to Enhance Account Security One97 Communications Limited that owns the brand Paytm is testing the Face Login feature on its Android beta app*. It will enable users to log in to their app by simply looking at their phone. This will be an important security update for Paytm users that is designed to prevent phishing attacks by providing an additional security layer of biometric security.

The platform has witnessed that users accidentally share their account details with others and are mostly not comfortable with resetting their password. This Face Login feature will provide answers to all those problems and provide a secure yet simple method for them to access their account by just looking at their phone. The company has tested this feature extensively with over 10,000 distinct faces and witnessed nearly 100% accuracy. To achieve this, the app maps over 200 distinct parameters on the human face for high accuracy.

ASUS Unveils ZenFone Lite (L1) Along with ZenFone Max (M1) Lenovo announced the introduction of two smartphones in India, the Lenovo K9 and Lenovo A5. The Lenovo K9 is priced at INR 8,999 and the A5 is priced at INR 5,999 and INR 6,999. The K9 boasts off quad-camera setup, 5.7-inch 18:9 Full-screen, 8-core processor with 3GB RAM and an attractive glass body. 13-megapixel + 5-megapixel dual front and rear cameras, bokeh effect for DSLR-quality selfies, rapid autofocus and front & rear flashes ensure every moment is captured in perfection. The 8-Core RAM will ensure greater stability and smoothness. The A5 mobile phone delivers the ultimate visual experience with its 5.45-inch HD full-screen in 18:9 aspect ratio and 80.3% screen-to-body ratio. The 2/3GB+16/32GB memory coupled with the quad-core 1.3GHz processor delivers ultimate smoothness in daily usage. 4000 mAh large-capacity battery delivers ultralong standby time, while intelligent power-saving features ensure uninterrupted use of your phone throughout the day. The MTK MT 6739 quad-core Cortex-A53 1.3 GHz processor ensures daily applications run without lags. A5 is priced at INR 5,999 for the 2/16GB variant and INR 6,999 for 3/32GB variant.

iVVO Opens its Online Store with Free Delivery Across India Taking its vision to digitize India one step further, iVVO has now announced the launch of its e-commerce operations to more than 19,000 PIN codes across India. iVVO customers can now also purchase its smart feature phone offerings digitally via www.ivvo. co.in in addition to its offline retail stores. As part of the initial rollout, iVVO is currently offering 6 smart feature phones from its four product categories, namely Beatz, Primo, Selfee, and Tuff. The current product line-up includes IV2401 (Beatz), IV1806 (Primo), IV2401s (Primo), IV24872 (Primo), IVBFLY (Selfee), and IVRUG (Tuff).

BRITZO has enabled delivery to even rural hinterlands of India by covering the entire stretch of the country. The MRPs of individual products listed on the website are inclusive of taxes and are subject to zero shipping costs despite iVVO’s prices starting from Rs. 849.

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ASUS announced global debut of ZenFone Lite (L1) along with ZenFone Max (M1), compact 5.45” high performance smartphones that are designed to put the power packed fun back into mobile lifestyles of the affordable smartphone consumers. Powered by class leading Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 Octacore Processor, ZenFone Lite (L1) features a 5.45-inch Full View 18:9 display in an amazingly compact body that’s as small as many 5-inch phones. The high-capacity 3000mAh battery now gives users more mobile freedom than ever.

ZenFone Lite (L1) is equipped with up to a 13MP rear camera with phase-detection autofocus (PDAF) and a high-quality five-element lens. ZenFone Lite (L1) will be available at an introductory price of ₹5999/-. ZenFone Max Series ZenFone Max (M1) offers a class-leading high-capacity 4000mAh battery With its expansive 5.45” full view display, compact size, convenient face and finger print unlock and high capacity RAM and Storage. Its 13MP PixelMaster main camera is equipped with LED flash, f/2.0 aperture lens to capture clearer photos, and a phase-detection autofocus (PDAF) system that can accurately focus on the subject in just 0.03 seconds even if the subject is moving. ZenFone Max (M1) will be available at an introductory pricing of ₹7499/-

BUDGET PHONES

Ziox Mobiles Introduces Z18 Bluetooth Feature Phone at Rs. 1, 860/-

Detel Launches Three New Feature Phones with Auto Call Recording Under Rs. 900/-

Ziox Mobiles introduces the newest feature phone ‘Z18’.Designed with the dedicated Music keys on the phone, for quick access to your most-loved play-list, entertainment is just a press away! Z18 comes with a large and bright display screen of 2.4 inch along with the Gloss Finish Body. The phone has an in-built special Auto-call recording feature, allowing you to record your every call. Watch movies, text or call without interruption, the powerful 1800mAh Li-ion battery keeps it going. With the amazing soundquality and king speakers, enjoy the Multimedia experience.

Capture every moment lively and vividly via Digital camera with LED Torch Light. Play your music on Wireless FM & stay connected with Internet and Bluetooth. The phone also comes with Adaptive Flash Light, syncing the calls & alerts on the phone. Equipped with privacy lock feature & Mobile Tracker; keeps privacy first. With Multi-language support, the product in shades of blue and red; is available with leading retail stores across India.

Detel expands its portfolio with the launch of three new feature phones namely- D1 Vibe, D1 Pulse and D1 Shine in the Indian handset market. The devices are equipped with Wireless FM and Live FM alarm. Packed with a bundle of utilities, The D1 Vibe, D1 Pulse and D1 Shine are priced at Rs. 820, Rs. 830, and Rs. 810 respectively. The Wireless FM feature enables the users to listen to their favourite radio shows onthe-go and Live FM Alarm ensures that they don’t miss on any of the shows. The new feature phones come with a display screen of 1.77”. Additionally, the Detel Vibe also comes with an LED flashlight for low light conditions. All three dual- sim devices are backed by a 1050mAh battery each. All three feature phones have Micro SD slots for storage expandable up to 16GB. Continuing its Women’s Safety campaign, Detel provides users with a panic button in its feature phones in the form of numeric key 5 to invoke emergency calls. The phones come with a 1-year warranty.

M-tech Launches its First Senior Friendly Phone ‘Sathi’ for Rs 1299/-

Adcom Brings Its First Selfie Camera Feature Phone, A1 Selfie for Rs.790/-

M-tech has launched its first senior friendly phone – Sathi. The phone promises to make their lives easier and be a true companion, at all times. Ease of use is at the core of the M-tech Sathi with its 2” horizontal wide screen, extra-large keypads and on –screen fonts, bold keypad and icons for better visibility. Hearing being an issue with aging, key pad sound on the phone add that extra touch of usefulness. Security and medical emergency is crucial and the phone features an SOS button for emergency ensuring that their loved ones are never far away. Extending its usability beyond the elderly, Sathi offers Braille support for the visually impaired. The phone is equipped with a powerful 1800 mAh battery, curbing the need to charge it frequently. Sathi comes with a rear digital camera to capture beautiful moments and FM radio to keep the elderly entertained. Sathi phone is Priced at Rs 1299/-

Adcom has recently launched a new line of feature phones in it’s A Series. The top end feature phone in the newly launched A series is A1 Selfie. Engineered with perfection, the Adcom A1 Selfie is bundled with a sequence of below given features, 4.5 cms (1.8 Inch) Display with 2.5D Curved Glass and Dual SIM (GSM + GSM) facility, [DUAL CAMERA]: Front Selfie Camera & Rear Digital Camera, Bluetooth, WAP, GPRS, Music/Video Player, FM Radio, and 3.5mm Audio Jack, Vibrator, Phonebook, and SMS and 1050mah Lithiumion Battery. Expandable Memory up to 8 GB. Despite of the phone’s affordable price, the device consists of a Vibrator and 2.5D Curved Glass, which is a hard to find specification at this price point. Furthermore, the model has an Ergonomic body with keys for easy dialing and texting.A1 Selfie comes in unique colors such as Sky Blue, Royal Blue, and Black, and further backed with a 1 year warranty. A1 Selfie is part of Adcom’s line of A Series that further consists of A115, A101, X4 and A111.

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INTERVIEW

“We Shall Focus On Increasing The Outreach of ASUS in India�

Arnold Su, PC & ROG Head, Asus India

DT: How do you see current market position for ASUS in India?

Mr. Arnold: When we speak of the overall laptop space, ASUS enjoys a 7% market share and aims to increase it to 10% by the end of this year. The same would take us a notch higher to the fourth position in the Indian laptop market. When we particularly talk about the gaming laptop space, we are no. 1 in the gaming segment with 30% market share.

DT: How do you see overall growth of gaming laptops in India? What are your efforts in catering to these existing opportunities?

Mr. Arnold: The popularity of gaming laptops has only increased in the nation, especially in the past 18 months. At present, major players in the segment are vying to gain customer attention and loyalty, either by slashing prices or upgrading the available features and performance levels.

At ASUS India, we enjoy a good rapport and trust of the customers. Besides, while our different offerings would fit the different pocket sizes, we have always made it a point to innovate. Whether it is bringing the ScreenPad of the future to India, or the thermal cooling technology, RangeBoost

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Indian IT industry is one of the largest industries in the world and catering to the biggest consumer market globally. In the past few years, the trend of buying gaming laptops has increased among people due to its availability and affordability in Indian market. PC market has seen massive growth and continuing to grow further.

Brands are utilizing the existing opportunities to boost their overall market share. ASUS, one of the key market players, offering powerful and budget friendly laptops to customers across India. In a recent conversation with Arnold Su, PC & ROG Head at Asus India, we got to know about their overall performance so far this year, achievements, future investments and growth roadmaps for India. Find below the excerpts:

Technology to optimize Wi-Fi connectivity or the Overstoke Keyboard technology to provide a dynamic keyboard experience to users, we have constantly innovated to strike the right chord with passionate gamers in India.

DT: What are your commitments to ensure best-in-class service support for your customers?

Mr. Arnold: We are present across India with our distribution network, ASUS exclusive stores and ROG stores. These stores are present across the metropolis, tier 2 segment and beyond. While we shall continue to add more stores, we maintain last-mile connect with our customers through the same.

Furthermore, our customer support team operates round-the-clock to extend the best-in-class services and support to our customers.

DT: What are your strategies to eliminate barriers (competitors & unfavorable market conditions) to further strengthen your growth?

Mr. Arnold: The way we operate, i.e. by constant innovation and expansion, we endeavor to create uncontested spaces in the market. The innovations introduced by

ASUS, especially in the range of gaming laptops, are truly unrivalled and give us the edge against our competitors.

DT: Please brief about your current channel ecosystem. How do you support them to boost ASUS reach across all major market?

Mr. Arnold: At present, we are well supported by 100 exclusive partner stores and 6,000 distributors who sell ASUS laptops across the country.

DT: What is your target/goal for ASUS in India by end of this year?

Mr. Arnold: By the end of 2019, we will add 100 more exclusive stores, whilst also growing our distributors to 10,000 during the same period. Furthermore, we will also add 7 new ROG (Republic of Gaming) stores to take the total number of such stores to 10 by the end of 2019.

DT: What are your future plans for India?

Mr. Arnold: In the near future, we shall focus on increasing the outreach of ASUS in India, while also looking at capturing a bigger market share.

ENTERPRISE FOCUS

Dell EMC Rolls Out New Ready Solutions for AI

Infosys Invests US$1.5 Million in TidalScale Inc.

Dell EMC announced the availability of new Ready Solutions for AI, with specialized designs for Machine Learning with Hadoop and Deep Learning with NVIDIA. The Dell EMC Ready Solutions simplify AI environments, deliver faster, deeper insights than the competition1, and leverage Dell EMC’s proven expertise to help organizations realize the full potential of AI. ”There’s no doubt that AI is the future, and our customers are preparing for it now,” said Tom Burns, senior vice president, Networking & Solutions, Dell EMC. “Our goal is to lead the industry with the most powerful and fully-integrated AI solutions.

What we’re announcing today allows customers at any scale to start seeing better business outcomes and positions them for AI’s increasingly important role in the future.” Emerging technologies such as AI will transform lives and how people work and conduct business over the next decade. According to Dell Technologies’ research with 3,800 business leaders around the globe, conducted in partnership with VansonBourne, nearly 80% of organizations will be investing in advanced AI technologies within the next five years.

Infosys announced that it has made an additional investment of US$1.5 million through the Infosys Innovation Fund in Tidal Scale Inc., the company at the heart of the Software-Defined Server revolution.

Infosys has previously invested US$ 1.5 million in TidalScale Inc. in 2016 taking the cumulative investment as of date to US$ 3.0 million.

Tidal Scale’s award-winning Software-Defined Servers deliver inmemory performance at any scale, are self-optimizing, use standard hardware, and are compatible with all applications and operating systems. By enabling organizations to create systems of virtually any size using the commodity servers they already own while requiring no software changes, Tidal Scale makes it possible for more organizations to draw insights from big data faster, easily and with greater flexibility than ever before. In the process, TidalScale transforms the economics and time constraints of working with big data. “We are excited to further strengthen our relationship with TidalScale. Their ground-breaking software-defined server technology addresses a key challenge that many enterprises face - to rapidly increase the return on their existing investments in technology infrastructure assets,” said Deepak Padaki, Executive Vice President. “It is especially relevant to dynamically scale the compute power of servers for applications such as big data analytics, which are growing exponentially.”

Tata Communications Launches a Specialised Cyber Security Lab at SASTRA in India

Tata Communications has partnered with SASTRA Deemed University in Tamil Nadu to fund and establish a cyber security lab at the university. With this partnership, Tata Communications aims to co-create an ecosystem by partnering with universities globally to address cyber-security challenges today, while building the skills and capabilities for tomorrow. Through this association, Tata Communications and SASTRA, which ranks among the top 300 universities in Asia, have built a curriculum in cyber security with a focus on training, developing and strengthening the practical application of cyber security, encompassing the process and technology elements of cyber threat detection and mitigation. Madhusudhan Mysore, CEO, Tata Communications Transformation Services, said, “While there is a higher impetus to opt for STEM courses, the challenge is getting the right kind of industry support, exposure and hands-on practical experience. These university students are the next generation of professionals and business leaders in the making. Private organisations have the means, expertise and the technology to offer to Academia in order to create the right conditions and environment for students to learn and build on their theoretical and practical knowledge. We are very excited to play a role in enabling these young students to develop specialised skills and thrive, as they go on to become confident and accomplished professionals.”

Verizon Officially Turns on World’s First 5G Network The very first commercial 5G network on the globe goes live. Verizon’s 5G Home network, providing 5G broadband internet service, is officially live for consumers in parts of Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles and Sacramento.

Installations of 5G Home began this morning for “First on 5G” customers in those cities, with a resident of Houston, Clayton Harris, becoming the first 5G customer in the world. Built on the Verizon-led open 5G TF network standard, Verizon 5G Home is the next generation of home broadband internet service that provides superfast Wi-Fi. “The world’s first commercial 5G service is here,” said Ronan Dunne, President, Verizon Wireless.

“We’ve formed incredible partnerships with many of the world’s leading technology companies, the international technical standards bodies, public officials, developers and our own customers to drive the 5G ecosystem forward, faster than most had predicted. And now, actual customers. It’s been an incredible journey...and we’re just at the starting line.”

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ENTERPRISE FOCUS

Tech Mahindra Partners with i1too to Launch Next-Generation Software Development Platform

Tech Mahindra, a digital transformation, consulting and reengineering specialist, and i1too, a digital disruptor, announce their strategic partnership to launch a next generation software development platform aimed at accelerating innovation, automation and digitalization across a broad spectrum of industries globally with no-code application platform WEM. The disruptive platform empowers existing developers to build enterprise web and mobile applications rapidly, as much as 90% faster than hand or low code methods. It further enables business end-users to build and

scale their business software without the need for programming expertise due to an innovative and highly intuitive interface. The total cost of ownership of applications Tech Mahindra develops on the no-code platform can be reduced by up to 80%. Tech Mahindra and i1too aim to lead the way in no-code application development for large enterprises, globally. As part of the TechMNxt charter, Tech Mahindra continues to leverage next generation technologies in collaboration with its partner ecosystem, aimed at fostering customer growth.

Capillary Technologies Selects Trend Micro to Safeguard their Multi-cloud Environment Trend Micro cybersecurity solutions, through their advanced ‘Deep Security’ offering helped Capillary Technologies achieve seamless interoperability across their vast infrastructure. Trend Micro Deep Security, which provides a complete suite of cloud security solutions helped secure their workloads on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure public cloud environments. Capillary Technologies was looking for a security solution that could scale with the growing infrastructure and help achieve compliance for the multi-cloud environments. The solution also needed to protect cloud workloads against data breaches and business disruptions with around-the-clock alerting. They selected Trend Micro’s Deep Security, a state-of-the-art security solution with its multitenant architecture which includes anti-malware, web reputation, firewall, intrusion prevention, integrity monitoring, and log inspection to meet their requirements. Capillary Technologies deployed Trend Micro’s Deep Security which includes a dashboard that fulfils the requirement for simplified and centralized management with a single view into security operations. Trend Micro Deep Security solution also helped them to fulfil the prerequisite of meeting compliance requirements with Payment Card Industry (PCI) security standards and ensured that there are no security gaps or performance impacts for workloads in public or private clouds.

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Cognizant Enters Into Definitive Agreement to Acquire Softvision Cognizant announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Softvision, LLC, a privately-held digital engineering and consulting company focused on agile development of innovative software solutions and platforms. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2018 subject to the satisfaction of the closing conditions, including regulatory review.

Terms are not being disclosed. Softvision is a leader in developing custom digital products using unique collaborative engineering methods. The combination of capabilities from Softvision and Cognizant creates one of the top digital engineering companies in the world and a leader in software product development, helping clients innovate at speed and execute at scale.

“By joining forces with Cognizant, we can combine our unique engineering, design and digital product development approach with Cognizant’s scale and digital expertise in areas like artificial intelligence, virtual reality, IoT, human science and others to provide even more innovative solutions and impactful experiences,” said, Andres Angelani, Softvision’s CEO.

MARKET REPORT

Dell Continues to Lead Indian External Storage Market with a 26.5% Market Share As per IDC’s latest Asia/Pacific Quarterly Enterprise Storage Systems Tracker Q2 2018 release, India’s external storage market witnessed a growth of 21.1% YoY (by vendor revenue) and stood at USD 84.7 million in Q2 2018.

The growth in 2Q 2018 was mainly driven by increased demand from professional services organizations. Professional services, banking, manufacturing, Telecommunications and government industries contributed to close to 80% of overall external storage market in Q2 2018 “Increased acceptance of emerging technologies and DX acceleration across organizations led to investments on new age external storage hardware technologies and evaluation of storage optimizing solutions such as Software defined storage.” says Dileep Nadimpalli, Research Manager, Enterprise Infrastructure, IDC India.

All flash array and Hybrid flash array segments saw a significant YoY growth in Q2 2018 while All Hard Disk Drive segment continued to decline. Across industries, there was an increased consumption of

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Solid-State Drives (SSD) over Hard Disk Drives (HDD) for better performance of different workloads.

Midrange external storage segment continued to lead the market constituting more than 60% of the total Q2 2018 market while High-end storage segment declined YoY in Q2 2018. Availability of enterprise class features in Midrange storage systems is propelling the growth for midrange storage arrays.

“IT departments are facing challenges in accommodating the LOB demands on scalability and agility for faster time to market and better customer experience.

Organizations are creating more ‘data value’ and ‘monetization’ means by leveraging new architectures/storage solutions”, says Ranganath Sadasiva, Director, Enterprise, IDC India.

Dell Inc. continued to be the market leader with a 26.5% market share by vendor revenue, followed by Hewlett Packard Enterprise with 21.5%market share in Q2 2018. Overall market grew significantly backed by a large multi-million-dollar deal for capacity storage in professional services industry.

IDC India Forecast The external enterprise storage systems market is expected to grow at a single digit compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) for the 2017 - 2022 time-period. Expecting incremental business from banking vertical for Artificial Intelligence and Government initiatives around digitalization, smart cities, make in India, e-governance projects in the near future.

MARKET REPORT

HPE Leads the Indian x86 Server Market Followed by Dell The overall server market in India witnessed a year-over-year (YoY) increase of 15.9 percent in terms of revenue to reach $353.1 million in Q2 2018 versus $304.6 million in Q2 2017, according to the latest IDC (International Data Corporation) Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) Quarterly Server Tracker, Q2 2018. The x86 server market registers growth for the third consecutive quarter accounting for 93.5 percent of overall server market in terms of revenue during Q2 2018. Large deals from IT and ITeS companies and cloud providers followed by Tier-1 telcos, manufacturing and banking continued to drive demand in Q2 2018.

Digitalization is driving and transforming the IT architecture amongst end-users across different verticals resulting in increasing the need to launch new applications and services towards creating innovative offerings for customers. We have observed that application availability and performance are paramount to businesses and would continue to create demand for agile, scalable and robust compute in the coming years.

The non x86 server market generated $23.0 million revenue, with a YoY decline of 15 percentage points, in Q2 2018. IBM led the market with a revenue share of 62.6 percent, followed by Oracle with share of 25.1 and HPE with 12.3 percent during Q2 2018. Banking remains top vertical with 59.2 percent revenue share followed by utilities, manufacturing and professional services with 14.7 percent, 9.6 percent and 9.0 percent respectively, during Q2 2018.

The x86 server market in terms of revenue witnessed a YoY growth of 18.9 percent to reach $330.1 million in Q2 2018 up from $277.5 million during Q2 2017.

Professional services, telecommunications and manufacturing were the top three verticals accounting for 82.2 percent of the overall x86 server market. In terms of form factor, Rack optimized and blade servers accounts for 3/4th of overall x86 server revenues in Q2 2018.

“End-users in the India market demand simplicity, reliability, scalability in all of

their IT solutions. Vendors positioning these key technology elements in their product/solution are expected to make significant strides in their business” says Ranganath Sadasiva, Director, Enterprise Research, IDC India.

In Q2 2018, the top two vendors kept their positions in the X86 server market. HPE led the India x86 server market with revenue share of 28.4 percent to reach $93.83 million in Q2 2018 followed by Dell with share of 25.0 percent to reach $82.42 million The major deals for HPE came from telecommunications and professional services verticals, while Dell successfully registered incremental deals from existing customers across Professional services and manufacturing. Lenovo has overtaken Cisco as third largest server vendor in India during Q2 2018, due to a big win from one of the largest public cloud service provider; Cisco came fourth winning customers across different verticals with a revenue share of 7.6 percent. Also, ODM direct market share declined YoY by 0.7 percent and accounted for 24.1 percent share in Q2 2018.

“India server market shows positive sign of growth with compute platforms continue to be the backbone of digital economy. Volume server category revenue contribution depicts that it is the most preferred price range for compute and how end-users are

choosing to run clusters of low-cost servers for some of the most demanding applications,” says Harshal Udatewar, Market Analyst, Server, IDC India.

IDC India Forecast Government investment remains as the primary driver towards creating the digital economy. Key investment areas focussed

by Government includes Smart city, State Wide Area Network (SWAN), Bharatnet, National supercomputing mission (NSM) and others which are expected to create considerable demand of servers in the coming year.

From vertical standpoint, major telcos spending would be focussed towards preparing for 5G roll out, creating valueadded services and modernisation of networks across India creating incremental demand of compute. IT and ITeS service providers would realign their focus towards developing newage technologies such as Analytics, mobility, AI, IoT platforms, blockchain and continue to create incremental demand for servers. Manufacturing end-users spending would be directed towards SCM and ERM solutions which would require substantial compute demand to run the production environment. Banks would continue to spend on traditional compute for monetizing value from chunks of data and providing innovative offerings to their customers.

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REALLY HOT

Acer Predator Orion Series Desktops

DIGISOL Outdoor Wireless Access Point

Acer announced refreshes of its Predator Orion 9000 and 5000 gaming desktops, all featuring new 9th Gen Intel® Core desktop processors, giving gamers a leap in performance for smooth, seamless gameplay — even while streaming and recording.

Powered by 9th Gen Intel Core desktop processors, the Predator Orion series gaming desktops are performance PCs designed for the serious to hardcore gamer. The Predator Orion 5000 is a gaming powerhouse for users who need an exceptional gaming rig, while the Predator Orion 9000 is a gamer’s dream machine aimed at the most demanding users, with top-of-theline NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 2080 Ti GPUs. With up to 9th Gen Intel Core i9-9900K processors and planned support for the new Intel Core X-series processors, the Predator Orion 9000 is the ultimate gaming PC. It features up to the latest NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti GPUs, and supports over 8K UHD graphics. A black and silver chassis gives it a spacecraft-like casing that glows with customizable ARGB (Addressable RGB) lighting bars and RGB LED fans.

DIGISOL Systems Ltd. announced the release of its new 1200Mbps high power Outdoor wireless access point with the next generation 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard and 2x2 MIMO technology. The DG-WA7910P is a dual band AP with 2.4GHz(300Mbps) and 5GHz(900Mbps) & Gigabit WAN/LAN port, with faster data rate up to 1200Mbps end users can access into it to enjoy seamless HD movies, streaming, online gaming, wireless security and other high bandwidth intensive tasks. The DGWA7910P comes with ABS waterproof, dust proof and sunscreen shell which avoid the damage from dust & rainy weather.

The DG-WA7910P has integrated active Power over Ethernet (PoE), for easy installation and lower cost. So it can be installed in areas where power outlets are not readily available, eliminating the mess of altering existing network infrastructure.

The DG-WA7910P works with WLAN controller in wireless AP operation mode, easily access advanced network settings through PC, like AP status monitor, change IP address, SSID, Channel, Password, upgrade firmware, backup and restore.

Portronics “Harmonics 208” Wireless Headphones Portronics has augmented its Harmonics series of high-quality headphones with the launch of “Harmonics 208” stereo wireless headphones with a decent bass and mid-frequency response.

Harmonics 208 provides an extraordinary 12-14-hours talk/play time with 430 hours of standby on a single charge. Harmonics 208 has 200mAh high quality inbuilt rechargeable battery with charging time of only 2 hours. The design of Harmonics 208 is pleasant to your ears and matches its remarkably long play time. This wireless headphone has strong magnetic speaker with Acoustic Echo Reduction technology which reduces the background noise during phone calls which does not bother you in your conversations. It uses power efficient Bluetooth 4.1 BLE low energy which does not drain the battery quickly. The switch between calls and music is seamless and fast. Portronics Harmonics 208 is available in three vibrant colors – Black, Blue & Red, at a very attractive price-point of INR 2999/- from both online and offline stores.

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Intex XH Bomb SUFB Speakers

Intex Technologies one of the major consumer durable brands, today announced the launch of its two new channel speakers XH Bomb SUFB (2.1 and 4.1). With this launch, Intex now has 29 models in 2.1 series and has 16 models in 4.1 series, whereas it already has 11 models in 5.1 series, taking the total speaker portfolio to 70+ models. Speaking about the connectivity, the new range of 4.1 and 2.1 channel speakers boast of AUX audio input compatible with DVD/PC/TV; fully functioned remote control; digital FM playability and digital controls like mode, play/pause etc. The speakers also have an attractive LED screen display. The speaker models come with 4.1 and 2.1 channel M/m speaker with SD/USB/FM/BT/AUX. The AUX is compatible with DVD/PC/TV also, it comes with the fully functional remote control. Both the speakers have LED display and Digital FM playability.

REALLY HOT

Xerox Multifunction Printers

Today’s small- and medium-sized businesses need efficient printing options that maximize productivity, reduce costs and simplify daily work processes. Committed to help organizations meet this growing demand, Xerox answers with the Xerox B1022/B1025 Multifunction Printers (MFPs). The affordable, black-and-white, all-in-one devices combine the functions of a duplex copier, printer, color scanner and fax1. The B1022/B1025 allows users to produce output on paper sizes up to Tabloid/A3 quickly and cost effectively. Everyday functions like scan to email or scan-to and print-from a USB flash drive can be done at the device, and the wireless connectivity option adds the convenience of printing directly from mobile devices. The color touchscreen user interface1 lets users easily interact with the device to quickly complete everyday office printing and scanning tasks. It also includes the Xerox Embedded Web Server that allows users to make changes and monitor machine status – remotely, using an internet browser. The MFPs are enabled with the latest security features to protect against threats and vulnerabilities.

D-Link Wi-Fi Range Extender The DAP-1610 AC1200 Wi-Fi Range Extender is a plug-in repeater that lets us extend an existing wireless network and supports Wireless AC speeds of up to 1200 Mbps. Its Dual-band technology helps reduce interference from nearby wireless transmitters and also provides backward compatibility with older wireless devices in network, allowing us to enjoy a blazing-fast, reliable wireless connection. Setting up the AC1200 Wi-Fi Range Extender is simple. Use the supported QRS Mobile app to set up DAP-1610 without needing a computer.

Alternatively, one may use the one-touch configuration by pushing the WPS push-button on the DAP1610 and on the router or AP to extend network, and it will automatically configure itself.

DAP-1610 is a compact device that is ideal for use at home or a small office, as it does not take up much space and is ready to use by simply plugging it in. The bright Signal Indicator LED makes finding a suitable location a cinch.

Ambrane 10000 mAh Power Bank

Ambrane India yet again spoils users for choice, with its latest 10000 mAh an ergonomic contoured design for consumers who love to have a distinctive fashion style of their own.

Sporting minimalistic design which spells sophistication, the rubberized finish the Power bank is designed for everyday use.

The 10000mAh features Dual USB ports, one Micro-USB port and gives 5V/2.1A MAX (Auto Switch Mobile Phone Dependent) output. The power pack withstands up to 300 times charge discharge cycle, making sure your electronic arsenal is always ready when you are. The power bank boasts being compatible with the most of the portable gadgets. Fabricated with polymer 10,000mAh battery, the power bank sports advanced smart control chips and charging/discharging chips, that provides 8 major circuit protection mechanisms; overcharge protection, over discharge protection, overvoltage protection, over power protection, current leakage protection, short circuit protection, over temp protection and auto shut off during abnormal status.

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INDUSTRY NEWS

IDC Appoints Neelam Dhawan as AdvisorPartner Transformation

IDC announces the appointment of Ms. Neelam Dhawan as AdvisorPartner Transformation IDC India. Neelam has over thirty-five years of experience in the information technology industry. She has held various positions across HCL, IBM, Microsoft and Hewlett Packard. She has been Managing Director and leader of the Country businesses for 11 years for Microsoft and later Hewlett Packard in India. Over several years, leading business journals such as Fortune (international edition), Forbes and Business Today have recognized her as one of the Most Powerful Women in Business.

Her main area of expertise has been managing complex technology business in highly matrixed organizations. She has experience of IT transformation across multiple industries: banking and finance, telecommunications, manufacturing, health care and government.

Amit Malhotra, Managing Director, IDC India and South Asia said “Neelam has accumulated vast insight into the channel business.

She has been one of the original architects who helped shape ICT channel ecosystem. We are very excited to work closely with her to help partners in this transformational journey.”

Signify Take Home DotA 2 Rs. 7 Lakh Prize at Phoenix Gaming Expo, Chennai

ASIRT Hosts Its First Membership Drive Event in Mumbai

The Association of System Integrators and Retailers in IT (ASIRT) recently organized its first Membership Drive event in Mumbai, as part of its strategic growth and expansion initiative, planned by the new Board. Renowned Author and Corporate Leadership Mentor, Dr. Radhakrishnan Pillai, the guest of honor at the event enthralled the audience with an engaging talk on the challenges of modern business and the power of collaboration to drive individual and industry growth. The event saw enthusiastic participation from the SI and IT entrepreneurs who were keen to understand the offerings and benefits of associating with ASIRT. The ASIRT presentation and interaction were followed by an insightful address by Corporate Leadership Mentor and Author, Dr. Radhakrishnan Pillai. Also known as CHANAKYA Pillai, Dr. Radhakrishnan is the Founder-Director of Chanakya Institute of Public Leadership (CIPL) and is the Deputy Director for the Masters in Leadership Science Program conducted by the University of Mumbai. The evening ended with a hearty dinner over networking and discussions on CHANAKYA’s sutras, leaving everyone with some new perspective, renewed motivation and energized spirits!

Xiaomi to Manufacture Mi LED TVs in India

The DotA 2 finals took place inside the recently launched Club Crest at Phoenix MarketCity and saw LXG Esports, ROG Titans, Signify and Silver Gaming battle it out in the finals. Team Signify took home first place and the Rs.7,00,000/- prize with Team LXG Esports taking the runner up spot and Rs. 2,00,000/-. Whilst DotA 2 saw professional e-gamers from across India the FIFA 18 and PUBG competitions witnessed local Chennaites taking part. PUBG played in the courtyard of the mall had over 900 registrations, a record for a mass public PUBG gaming event. The top prize in FIFA 18 was taken by Prathik who walked away with Rs.40, 000/- and goodies worth Rs.15, 000/-, while the runner up, Sujay, was awarded Rs.20, 000/- during the closing ceremony on Sunday evening. The PUBG tournament was won by Team Spider Clan & Team Ganesha with the top prize of - Rs.30, 000/- and goodies worth Rs. 25, 000/-.

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Xiaomi announced local manufacturing of Mi LED TVs. Taking another step towards its commitment to Make in India, Xiaomi has partnered with Dixon Technologies to locally manufacture its range of Mi LED TVs in India. The new Mi LED TV manufacturing plant, built in partnership with Dixon Technologies is located in a campus in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh with a total campus area spanning across 32 acres. The factory with Dixon Technologies now employ more than 850 people. The factory will result in a production capacity of 100,000 Mi LED TVs per month by Q1 2019, during operational hours which if laid down covers more than 11 football fields* of surface area. The new Mi LED TV manufacturing plant will start local assembly with Mi LED Smart TV 4A 80cm (32”) and Mi LED Smart TV 4A 180cm (43”) for now.

TAIT Engages Delegates from FAIITA Through Its Knowledge Series Event in Mumbai

The Trade Association for Information Technology (TAIT) organized their recent Knowledge Series event in Mumbai on a grand scale, hosting over 25 delegates from FAIITA affiliated IT associations from across the country. The event was organized to coincide with the FAIITA AGM and the InfoComm India IT Exhibition, both hosted in Mumbai. The event started on an excited note as several IT retailers and traders from across the country came together on a common platform to meet, interact and connect. Mr. Krupashankar Chube, President, TAIT opened the session with a welcome note and a round of introduction of the esteemed delegates from various member associations, the keynote speaker for the evening, Dr. Radhakrishnan Pillai, as well as the sponsor for the evening, Mr. Sukhpreet Singh Sahni, Regional Sales Manager - Retail, Dell International Services India Pvt. Ltd. Post the introductions, Mr Krupashankar Chaube also briefly introduced the theme of the evening, ‘Business Beyond Boundaries’, emphasizing the significance of collaboration and growth among Indian IT community.

Taiwan Excellence Showcases Smart Technologies for India’s Smart City Mission in Bengaluru

INDUSTRY NEWS

F-Secure Partners with Zyxel to Provide Secure Wi-Fi Connectivity Cyber security provider F-Secure and broadband networking solutions provider Zyxel are teaming up to bring fast, secure Wi-Fi to homes all over the world. The two companies have signed an agreement to offer service providers a range of home cyber security gateways that provide the fast Wi-Fi connectivity demanded by today’s consumers while delivering comprehensive protection for PCs, smart TVs, mobile phones and tablets, and all the other internet-enabled devices finding their way into people’s homes. “We are delighted to work with Zyxel to help bring residential gateways with world-class security to the market,” said Kristian Järnefelt, F-Secure’s Executive Vice President of Consumer Security. “We have experience working with over 200 operator partners to bring security to people while they’re at home and on the move. And with routers quickly becoming another door to people’s homes, both F-Secure and Zyxel are committed to providing the market with secure routers that can prevent these home gateways from becoming doors for cyber criminals and other online threats.”

Hathway Cable and Broadband to Enhance the OTT TV Viewing Experience for Indian Consumers Hathway Cable and Datacom Limited and FTTH broadband operator announced the launches of an OTT Set Up box, based on Google’s Android TV. Hathway is aiming to make watching experience on OTT TV in India easy, through the launch of Hathway Play box which carries a dedicated You Tube, Netflix and Google Play button on the L-R- Rajan Gupta, MD, Hathway remote control, giving the ability Cable & Datacom, Radhika Apte, Mark to consumers to access their Seidenfeld, APAC Head, Android TV favourite show with a simple unveling the device. click on the big screen. Hathway Play box customers now have direct access to view a broad selection of global and local content including TV series and movies. Consumers can use Google assistant through a simple voice remote for applications such as finding their favourite web series, setting timers, answering questions, weather forecast and even placing e-commerce orders. It also has inbuilt chrome cast which allows you to mirror content from your phone to TV. Just at the tap of Cast button on your mobile app, it allows you to mirror movies & TV shows, music, games, sports and more – from Android, iOS, Mac, Windows to your TV.

Acer Joins Hand with Twentieth Century Fox to Promote “The Predator” Taiwan Excellence stepped up its efforts to boost India’s Smart Cities Mission with its strong participation at the Smart Asia India Expo & Summit 2018 laying major focus on accelerating innovation and entrepreneurship. Smart Asia India Expo & Summit 2018 aimed to connect Taiwan’s expertise and India’s opportunity in building intelligent, robust and efficient Smart Cities. The trade show is being held from October 4th to 6th at the Bangalore International Exhibition Center (BIEC), Bengaluru. At the Expo, the best of Taiwan’s ICT industry displayed some of their most innovative creations that could create a big splash in the Indian market. There were various products and brands in smart ICT, smart healthcare, Internet of Things (IoT) solutions and smart-life devices industries.

The cutting edge, award-winning products displayed at the Expo turned out to be star attractions for visitors. Among the stellar products on display was the smart Water Dispenser from Buder that gives out water with just a single touch.

As “The Predator” movie is coming to theatres around the world, Acer and Twentieth Century Fox are joining global marketing efforts on the promotion of “Predator,” amplifying both the new movie—the 6th instalment of the Predator’s film series—and Acer’s premium line of ‘Predator’ gaming PCs, monitors and gadgets, working together across both traditional and digital channels. “Acer is excited to work with Twentieth Century Fox to promote the ‘Predator’ gaming products and the classic movies of the same name,” said Mr. Chandrahas Panigrahi, CMO & Consumer Business Head, Acer India. “We hope that through this special collaboration, movie fans, both new and old can experience gaming, and that gamers hit the theatres to experience a different kind of thrill.” “The Predator films are sci-fi classics that have been a global name in cinema for over 20 years and we’re happy to associate with a technology giant such as Acer to promote the ‘Predator’ brand of PC gaming products with the same name as the classic film.” said Shikha Kapur, Chief Marketing Officer, Fox Star Studios, India.

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RNI NO : DELENG/2010/31992