Friday, March 29

News

Snapdeal Board Will Discuss Sellout Possibility to Flipkart Tomorrow
News

Snapdeal Board Will Discuss Sellout Possibility to Flipkart Tomorrow

The board of e-commerce marketplace Snapdeal is expected to meet tomorrow to discuss the potential sale of India's third largest e-commerce firm to larger rival Flipkart. Also, on the agenda will be getting Nexus Venture Partners (NVP), an early investor in Snapdeal, to agree to the sale deal. The approval of Nexus Venture Partners will be crucial for the proposed transaction to proceed, according to sources close to the development. The seven-member board of Jasper Infotech, which operates Snapdeal, includes representation from investors SoftBank, Kalaari Capital and Nexus Venture Partners (NVP), as well as co-founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal. The valuation of Snapdeal is believed to be one of the hurdles to the deal, as Kalaari and NVP were not in agreement with the valuatio...
Elon Musk SpaceX Rocket Lifts Off Secret US Military Satellite
News, USA

Elon Musk SpaceX Rocket Lifts Off Secret US Military Satellite

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Florida on Monday, carrying the company's first satellite for the U.S. military, and breaking a 10-year monopoly held by a partnership of Lockheed Martin and Boeing. The 23-story tall rocket took off from its seaside launch pad at Kennedy Space Center at 7:15 a.m. EDT. It will put into orbit a classified satellite for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office, an agency within the Defense Department that operates the nation's spy satellites. Nine minutes after takeoff, the rocket's main section touched down on a landing pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, just south of NASA's spaceport. Last month, Space Exploration Technologies Corp flew its first recovered booster on a second mission, a key step in company founder Elon Musk's quest ...
Google’s Search For Non-ad Revenue Puts Spotlight on Cloud & Pixel
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Google’s Search For Non-ad Revenue Puts Spotlight on Cloud & Pixel

Alphabet's non-advertising business, which houses its cloud unit, Pixel smartphones and the Play store, has long been sandwiched between Google's advertising juggernaut and its moonshot ventures that have captured popular imagination. Not any more. The business, categorized as "Other Revenue" in its earnings report, posted a 49.4% jump in revenue to $3.10 billion on Thursday - a sum already bigger than Twitter's annual revenue. The business now represents about 13% of Alphabet's total revenue, compared with 10% a year earlier. That may not be a big jump but definitely shines a light on Google's efforts to cut down its dependence on revenue from advertising, where it competes with Facebook. "(Google) is doing a good job, a much better job in diversifying revenue than Facebook is...
ShopClues Expanding its Fashion Business To Hit Profit Goal
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ShopClues Expanding its Fashion Business To Hit Profit Goal

ShopClues is expanding its fashion business by bringing on board more local brands and enhancing product offerings, a move that will steer the e-commerce marketplace towards overall profitability. ShopClues, which focuses on value and mid-price segments, aims to hit overall profitability by the first half of 2018- 19. Talking about the lifestyle segment, ShopClues Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer Radhika Aggarwal said the current size of Indias apparel and lifestyle market is estimated to be over USD 90 billion but only 2 per cent of this is online. "However, this (lifestyle) is also the fastest growing category and reaches 24 per cent of online consumers in India," she told Pixr8. The lifestyle segment is fast growing with intense competition among not just fashio...
Indian Government Propose New Manufacturing Scheme To Apple
INDIA, News

Indian Government Propose New Manufacturing Scheme To Apple

The government wants iPhone maker Apple to consider a new manufacturing scheme offering duty benefits to set up its plants in the country. "Apple had asked for a set of concessions. For a period of 15 years all the components that Apple imports, they want them to be free of duty. We have a phased manufacturing programme (PMP) because we want more and more value addition to come to the country. We want them to understand how this PMP will work and how they can dove tail into that," Ministry of Electronics and IT Secretary Aruna Sundararajan told reporters today. She was speaking on the sidelines of the annual session of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). IT and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has approved PMP and the government set to notify it. "Right now the value...
Google CEO Sundar Pichai Received Nearly $200 Million Compensation in 2016
News

Google CEO Sundar Pichai Received Nearly $200 Million Compensation in 2016

Google's 44-year-old India-born CEO Sundar Pichai received nearly USD 200 million in compensation last year, double the amount he got in 2015. Pichai received a salary of USD 650,000 last year, slightly less than the USD 652,500 he earned in 2015. But the long-time Google employee, who was named CEO during the company's re-organisation in August 2015, received a stock award of USD 198.7 million in 2016, roughly double his 2015 stock award of USD 99.8 million. The company's compensation committee attributed the lavish pay to Pichai's promotion to CEO and "numerous successful product launches", the CNN reported. Larry Page, Google's co-founder and previous CEO, shifted his focus to growing new businesses under the Alphabet umbrella. Under Pichai, Google has boosted sales from ...
Infosys Launches Infosys Nia- The Next Generation Integrated Artificial Intelligence Platform
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Infosys Launches Infosys Nia- The Next Generation Integrated Artificial Intelligence Platform

Infosys, a global leader in consulting, technology, outsourcing and next-generation services, today announced the launch of Infosys Nia, the next-generation Artificial Intelligence Platform building on the success of the Company's first-generation AI platform, Infosys Mana, and its Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solution, AssistEdge. Together, both these products have amassed 50+ clients and 150+ engagements across all industry sectors, within a year of operations. Infosys Nia converges the big data/analytics, machine learning, knowledge management, infrastructure management services etc. As a unified, flexible, and modular platform, Infosys Nia enables a wide set of industry and function-specific solutions and allows customers to build custom experiences to suit their business needs....
PwC India Launch Analytics Platform PwC Insights
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PwC India Launch Analytics Platform PwC Insights

PwC India today announced launch of PwC Insights as a Service (PIAS), an advanced analytics platform that drives business outcomes. The platform comes preloaded with data automation and management tools, industry and domain-specific machine learning and cognitive algorithms that will help enterprises and government departments to improve business outcomes. Over the next year, 30 such solutions will be rolled out in the market on a pay-as-you-go engagement model, PwC said in a statement. "With Insights as a Service, we are addressing our clients needs of building next-gen analytics capabilities, with minimal investments in technology and talent," said Raman Bhushan, Partner, Advanced Analytics and Data Science, PwC India.
TVF Founder Arunabh Kumar Arrested, Released on Bail
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TVF Founder Arunabh Kumar Arrested, Released on Bail

In the latest development, Arunabh Kumar, CEO and founder of TVF online channel has been arrested and then re leased on bail on the same day after paying a bond of Rs 10,000. Arunabh was earlier booked for molestation based on a complaint by former office employee in Mumbai, almost two weeks after a blog detailing the harassment first surfaced on the internet. After getting anticipatory bail, Arunabh issued a press statement to the police in which he alleged that the harassment claims were a conspiracy against him. "I have strong feeling that someone is trying to hamper my business by doing all of this," Kumar said. The creative director of TVF, Nidhi Bisht, sent out a letter to the 200 employees of the organisation condemning all the allegations made against Arunabh Kumar.
India’s Leading Universities Like DU, IIT-D, AMU Among 10 Websites Hacked
News

India’s Leading Universities Like DU, IIT-D, AMU Among 10 Websites Hacked

At least 10 official websites including those of premier educational institutions like Delhi University, Aligarh Muslim University, IIT Delhi and IIT BHU - were hacked today with "Pakistan Zindabad" slogans displayed on them. The hacker group, which identified itself as "Pakistan Haxors Crew (PHC)", said, "nothing deleted or stolen. Just here to deliver my message to Indians." Other websites which have been hacked are University of Kota; Army Institute of Management and Technology, Greater Noida; Defence Institute of Advanced Technology; Army Institute of Management, Kolkata, National Aerospace Laboratories and Board of Research in Nuclear Sciences (BRNS). "Greetings Government of India, and the people of India. Do you know what your so-called heroes (soldiers) are doing in Kashmi...
TCS Launched Single Merchant Pay to Help Retailers
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TCS Launched Single Merchant Pay to Help Retailers

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has launched Merchant Pay to help retailers seamlessly integrate payments across multiple channels like Aadhaar, credit and debit card as well as phone-based payments through a single interface. Merchant Pay will allow consumers to transact by using fingerprint and confirming identity at stores that are enabled with this platform, TCS said at a statement. "With numerous digital payment methods like UPI, eWallets, Aadhaar Pay, Debit and Credit cards available, there was a need for a unified platform that integrates all digital payment methods offering convenience to customers and also allowing merchants to accept any form of digital payment," TCS President Growth Markets Ravi Viswanathan said. "The Merchant Pay platform will effectively integrate with va...
Snapdeal Sale: SoftBank Hopes Nexus Venture Too Come on Board
News

Snapdeal Sale: SoftBank Hopes Nexus Venture Too Come on Board

Japans SoftBank is hopeful of getting a nod soon from co-investor Nexus Venture Partners to sell Snapdeal to Indias largest e-commerce firm Flipkart. According to sources, Softbank -- the largest shareholder in Snapdeal-- has been successful in getting Kalaari to agree to the deal but is yet to get Nexus Venture Partners on board for the same. This should come through in the next one or two weeks and the deal may get announced next month, they added. SoftBank, Kalaari and Nexus did not respond to e-mails sent to them. Jasper Infotechs (which operates Snapdeal) seven-member board includes representation from investors SoftBank, Kalaari Capital and Nexus Venture Partners, as well as co-founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal. The deal, if completed, would mark the biggest acquisi...