DiGiSPICE: Industry Monitoring 29 March 2019
- Priyanka Kanodia
- Apr 1, 2019
- 9 min read
DiGiSPICE
Competitors
Ericsson raises investments in artificial intelligence, to ramp up hiring
Publication- The Economic Times
Edition- Online
Date- 29 March, 2019
Swedish telecom gear maker Ericsson is increasing investments in artificial intelligence (AI) in India, along with Sweden and the United States, to boost its managed services business. It is also aggressively hiring engineers NSE 1.47 % to support its AI and automation efforts in the country. “We have a lot of developments happening in India, and we are now betting on three centres – Silicon Valley, Sweden and India – worldwide, what we call the global AI accelerators.
It is super important for us that we increase AI investments, and we are doubling down on India, Sweden and Silicon Valley,” Peter Laurin, head of managed services at Ericsson, told ET. The company is hiring engineers globally for its AI accelerators, including 150 engineers in Bengalur.
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Ericsson says 5G security discussions leading to worry among customers
Publication- ET CIO
Edition- Online
Date- 29 March, 2019
Ericsson says current 5G network security discussions is leading to worry among its customers, but the mobile network equipment maker has still not seen an increase in contracts due to that, its top chief said on Wednesday. The company counts Chinese market leader Huawei and Finland's Nokia as its main rivals and some analysts think it could benefit from Western suspicions of Huawei, after Washington alleged its gear could be used by Beijing for spying.
Huawei has strongly rejected the allegations and launched a lawsuit against the U.S. government. "What we see is that customers are worried," Chief Executive Borje Ekholm told reporters ahead of the firm's annual general meeting at a venue close to its north Stockholm headquarters.
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Industry News
Ed-tech startup eShiksa gets new investor
Publication- VCCircle
Edition- Online
Date- 29 March, 2019
eShiksa, a startup which helps educational institutions manage their digital operations, has raised an undisclosed amount from Mumbai-based investment firm Mentor Capital as part of an extended seed round. Pravin Sharma, founder and chief executive of eShiksa, said in a statement that the fresh capital will be used for geographical expansion, customer acquisition and ramping up operations.
Founded by Sharma in 2013, Jaipur-based eShiksa’s offerings span learning, administration and business. Its online modules assist educational institutes with managing students, human resources, examinations and finance, among other departments. eShiksa had also raised an undisclosed amount in angel funding from Dewang Neralla, CEO of Atom Technologies, an end-to-end payment services provider.
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Paytm in talks to raise $1.5-2 billion from Softbank, Alibaba; Valuation to soar to $18 Billion
Publication- The Indian Wire
Edition- Online
Date- 29 March, 2019
Digital payment platform Paytm is soon likely to receive around $1.5 billion to $2 billion in a latest funding round. As per media reports, Paytm’s existing investors like Softbank and Alibaba backed Ant Financials are sure to invest in this more of an internal funding round. The investment from the existing investors is almost sure but Paytm is seeking investment from some external investors too and wants to take the total investment to $2 billion.
As per reports, the digital payment company will be valued at about $16-$18 billion which is much higher than the last round of funding when Warren Baffett led Berkshire Hathaway funded the company with an undisclosed sum of money.
Currently, Softbank owns about 19% in the Paytm, while Jack Ma led Alibaba owns about 38% in one97 communications-paytm’s parent company. Earlier in 2017, Softbank invested $1.4 billion in Paytm which was its maiden investment in the Vijay Shekhar Sharma founded Indian digital payments system.
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Let's have a look at top 5 internet companies in India with mind-boggling valuations
Publication- IBTimes
Edition- Online
Date- 29 March, 2019
A couple of days ago, logistics start-up Delhivery became the latest member of the billion-dollar valuation club after receiving $413 million from a consortium of investors led by SoftBank. Similarly, US retail giant Walmart had paid a staggering $16 billion for a 77 per cent stake in Flipkart, valuing the e-commerce major at $22 billion.
Paytm
The Noida-based digital payments and online commerce start-up is the flagship brand of parent One97 Communications, led by Vijay Shekhar Sharma. The company is in midst of raising $1.5-2 billion from existing investors SoftBank Vision Fund and Alibaba's financial affiliate Ant Financial. The latest financing round is expected to boost the payments services company's valuation to $16-18 billion from $10 billion last year.
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Subex Awarded 6-Year Contract From VodafoneZiggo
Publication- Express Computer
Edition- Online
Date- 29 March, 2019
Subex announced that it has been awarded a six-year deal with VodafoneZiggo, an integrated communications and entertainment services provider, to deploy its ROC Partner Settlement and Route Optimization Solutions. The solution will be deployed on a SaaS-based model for VodafoneZiggo’s new Interconnect Billing Platform, replacing three different existing legacy billing systems with a single solution, to reduce complexities and optimize costs. This deployment will also help VodafoneZiggo further reduce its operational costs through the Subex Managed Service Center of Excellence, to which certain business operations will be outsourced.
VodafoneZiggo is a Netherlands based operator offering fixed, mobile and integrated communication and entertainment services to consumers and businesses. VodafoneZiggo is a joint venture of Liberty Global, the biggest international TV and broadband internet company, and Vodafone Group, one of the world’s biggest telecommunication companies.
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Accenture tops Q2 estimates, raises profit forecast
Publication- Livemint
Edition- Online
Date- 29 March, 2019
Accenture Plc on Thursday raised its full-year profit forecast after reporting better-than-expected second-quarter earnings, benefiting from its investments in digital and cloud services. The consulting and outsourcing services provider's shares rose 4% before the opening bell. Much of Accenture's recent growth has been driven by digital and cloud services, which include everything from managing clients' social media marketing strategies to helping them migrate to the cloud.
Revenue from digital, cloud and security-related services, which the company calls "the New", constituted more than 60% of its total revenue in the second quarter. Accenture raised its full-year earnings per share forecast range to $7.18 to $7.32, from $7.01 to $7.25.
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Operation Clean Money Gets A Big Data Boost With Project Insight Implemented To Catch Tax Evaders
Publication- Analytics India Magazine
Edition- Online
Date- 29 March, 2019
India has historically been a haven for tax evaders, as many rich and powerful individuals have slipped under the radar and made away with crores of rupees. The Income Tax Department of India has long been on the tail of such evaders and they have struggled to catch up.
Black money hence became a mainstay of the Indian economy. High-ranking political and governmental officials have continued to evade taxes, along with a cadre of high-earning businessmen who simply do not wish to pay them.
Now, the I-T department might have a weapon to wield against such individuals. An undertaking that has been over 3 years in the making with a purported cost of ₹1,000 crore may prove to be the downfall of tax evaders in India. An analytics and data-based effort to find parties that do not pay tax, the I-T department’s coup de grace is known as Project Insight.
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HOW BIG DATA IS TURNING THE DATA MANAGEMENT PROFESSION ON ITS HEAD
Publication- Analytics Insight
Edition- Online
Date- 29 March, 2019
It is true that there has been a big data revolution in a short time period. As we speak, the data management profession requires innovative experts who seek practical and accurate solutions. Currently, no company can say that a data management status quo is a safe haven. The enormous amount of data trickling into the databases of each company is enough to drive innovation.
If we are to get the most from big data, both data managers and company owners need to understand where we are and what the future holds for this field. Becoming aware of how big data is turning the data management profession on its head is essential.
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https://www.analyticsinsight.net/how-big-data-is-turning-the-data-management-profession-on-its-head/
6 EFFECTIVE STEPS TO IOT SECURITY IN A DIGITAL WORLD
Publication- Analytics Insight
Edition- Online
Date- 29 March, 2019
Over the years, we have seen an exponential increase in the number of devices that have been connected to the Internet. From a little over 15 billion devices in 2015 to a mammoth 23 billion devices connected in 2018, this number has been increasing exponentially. It is estimated that by 2020, this figure will exceed the 30 billion mark with over 75 billion devices projected to be connected to the Internet by 2025. Humongous it may sound, but that is true! With so many IoT devices connected and, deployed in an uncontrolled, complex, and often hostile environment, securing these IoT systems presents a number of unique security challenges as discussed under:
IoT Security Challenges
The popularity of IoT has put across a number of complex security issues, especially privacy concerns that make IoT users susceptible to a lot of risks. These risks include cyber-attacks and identity theft in addition to default or hardcoded passwords that can create room for security breaches. The prevalent loopholes can be exploited by the cybercriminals in the dark web to gain remote access and wreak havoc on the devices.
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L&T's strategic initiative to focus on AI, IoT, VR, AR and cyber-security
Publication- Autocar Professional
Edition- Online
Date- 29 March, 2019
Indian multinational conglomerate Larsen & Toubro, has announced its new strategic initiative, L&T Nxt to define the future of the organisation from a fresh perspective. The company says this move has been identified as a select initiative in L&T's five-year strategic plan. "Disruption has become the new order and as we embrace new and frontier technologies, our businesses are leapfrogging into entirely new realms powered by the tremendous benefits of digitalisation and analytics," said S N Subrahmanyan, CEO and MD, Larsen & Toubro, referring to the sustained and concerted efforts of the company to embrace digitalisation. "We are committing significant investments and talent into this strategic effort and are confident that this will be an enabler for business."
In consonance with the expectations of a new age industry, L&T Nxt will focus on the areas of Artificial Intelligence (AI), lnternet-of-Things (IoT), Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), Geo-spatial solutions and Cyber Security and leverage the experience that L&T has gained over the years. The company says, through its current construction, EPC and manufacturing businesses, it has made one of the largest deployments of loT, analytics and Al in the industrial sector by converting most operational matters online, finance, human resources, labour, plant and material among others into smart, affordable and extremely efficient solutions.
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Can blockchain be the antidote to ransomware?
Publication- CIO
Edition- Online
Date- 29 March, 2019
Let us investigate the capabilities of blockchain technology to safeguard data. Safety, however, is just one of the potentials that blockchain has to offer. The huge shift with this science is in ‘reframing’ a lot of our present use of the program into a decentralized, encrypted transaction of value.
These may not be simply apparent or obvious monetary transactions, but all human interactions or ‘contracts’ can be captured! In addition to formalizing human interactions, the historical past of the ledger itself is a goldmine for fueling behavioral perception across the board. Thus, blockchain principles may dramatically enhance how we work with information and transactions in the future.
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Binance Talks on Importance of Blockchain, Remittance in India
Publication- Crypto News
Edition- Online
Date- 29 March, 2019
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has lately been in the news, for more good news than bad. While cryptocurrency regulations in India have been in a limbo since last one year, nonetheless the exchange has been fairly positive about the outcome.
Illustrating the importance of blockchain and remittance, the a blogpost stated, “To illustrate how cost-efficient blockchain transactions are in terms of transferring value, let’s look at one particular transaction on the blockchain. In November 2018, about 109,735 Bitcoins worth about US$600 million at the time were transferred from one address to another. On a normal remittance situation, up to US$32.4 million would have gone towards transfer fees. On the blockchain, this transfer cost more than 99% less. In fact, the whole transfer cost just $7.”
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Microsoft rolls out new Azure updates to tackle IoT Security
Publication- The Indian Wire
Edition- Online
Date- 29 March, 2019
Microsoft Azure today announced Azure Security Center for IoT, which provides hybrid cloud security management and threat protection capabilities to help its manufacturing customers monitor the security status of their Azure-connected Internet of Thingsdevices used in industrial applications.
The cloud provider’s latest offering is designed in a way so as to grease the wheels for their partners and customers and build enterprise-grade industrial IoT solutions with open standards and ensure their security.
“They want security more integrated into every layer, protecting data from different industrial processes and operations from the edge to the cloud,” Sam George, Microsoft Azure’s IoT director, said in a blog post yesterday. “They want to enable proofs-of-concept quickly to improve the pace of innovation and learning, and then to scale quickly and effectively. And they want to manage digital assets at scale, not dozens of devices and sensors.”
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https://www.theindianwire.com/software/microsoft-rolls-new-azure-updates-tackle-iot-security-114095/
How Can You Get Value From (Your) Big Data?
Publication- Huff Post
Edition- Online
Date- 29 March, 2019
Big data metaphors are overused clichés of the 21st century. Big data is either new gold, new oil or some valuable asset which is limited to the tangible nature of the metaphors and the industry seeking to define it. However, do you always receive tangible value from the data left behind for companies based on your active or passive digital footprint?
By 2025, the average data consumer will have at least one digital data engagement every 18 seconds, which translates into almost 4,900 interactions per day. In the course of these interactions, the data consumer also grants additional ‘free’ access to their digital footprint, which is further analyzed, by companies, to supply the consumer with personalized experiences.
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