BG Srinivas, the next Infosys CEO?

In less than four months, BG Srinivas has gone from being dark horse to front-runner to succeed SD Shibulal as the CEO of India's second-largest software exporter. To critics, he is the leader in a depleted race, but those who know Srinivas well say that his low profile belies his formidable business smarts. 

Srinivas, 53, is the oldest of the three people - fellow board members Ashok Vemuri and V Balakrishnan, who have both resigned - believed to be candidates to become CEO of Infosys. 

Despite being the head of Europe, as well as chief of banking and financial services globally, he is very reticent. 

"BG (as he is called by friends and colleagues) is a very quiet, no-fuss person. He has the ability to manage both seniors as well juniors without creating friction," former CFO Mohandas Pai, who is now with the Manipal Group, told ET. 

Srinivas, who spent 14 years at ABB before joining Infosys in 1999, has stayed overseas for several years and he has been aggressive in marketing and growing his team, Pai said. "He didn't work directly with me, but we've gone and met clients, we've gone and met investors, and he's always held his own and stood up as a good business person whom people respected." 

That seems to be also what investors and analysts think of Srinivas, who lives in London with his family. 

"BG is a very nice man, he's soft-spoken and gets along well with company insiders," said an analyst at one of the biggest US banks. 

"It seems like most people that I know in the company seem to favour BG over most other candidates that were spoken about as CEO candidates," said the analyst with the US bank. 

But Ashok Vemuri, the youngest of the trio, was perhaps the most suave of the lot. A former Bank of America executive, he was certainly the most determined to become CEO and decided to attain that goal at smaller rival iGate in August. 

The two also caught the attention when they swapped their portfolios in 2011. Srinivas, a mechanical engineer from Bangalore University, took on banking and financial services from Vemuri, who in turn took on manufacturing clients. They continued to be top bosses of their respective geographies, Vemuri in the US and Srinivas, across the pond. Balakrishnan, who resigned last week, was recently seen by some as more favoured once founder NR Narayana Murthy returned to take charge at the company in June. 

To an outsider, Srinivas is "not that aggressive and maybe he's more of an operations guy and a strategic guy", the analyst remarked, preferring to be not to be identified as he was not authorised to discuss the matter with the media. 

With a series of top-level exits since Murthy returned in June to lead a beleaguered company that had lost its bellwether status, investors and clients are looking for clarity at the top. 

"The biggest thing that Srinivas has to do is gain client confidence," said an observer of Infosys, who has ties to the company. "If you meet global CEOs, you must have the gravitas to talk to them and hold a discussion for 30 minutes or an hour. Vemuri had that gravitas, Balakrishnan had that gravitas." 

Another person close to Murthy said that at the moment Srinivas' chances of becoming CEO of Infosys appear bright. "If Murthy has said it will be an internal candidate, that person can only be BG." 

The question is, has Murthy really decided that.

Music streaming service Dhingana.com to shut

 

On-demand music streaming service Dhingana.com is shutting down. The reasons behind the shutdown of the service are not clear yet, but according to several people with knowledge of the development, a formal announcement on the closure will be made this week. 

Emails sent to Dhingana founders Swapnil Shinde and Snehal Shinde did not elicit any response. Even the chief executive officer Rohit Bhatia did not respond to the calls and text messages sent by ET. The portal, which claimed to have crossed nine-million monthly active unique users globally, was backed by investors like Helion Venture Partners and Inventus Capital Partners. 

Launched in 2007, Dhingana had raised $7 million in series B funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Experts point out that many music streaming services are struggling because T-Series and Hungama have blocked access to T-Series music for all services except for Hungama, hurting all competition's offering. "I have been informed about the closure of Dhingana a couple of days ago and I speak on behalf of the music industry when I say it saddens us no end," Devraj Sanyal, managing director of Universal Music and EMI Music South Asia said. 

There was a new wave of newer services from telecom companies, which are a hybrid of the streaming and download models. "And those in my opinion will be the greatest threat to the pure play streaming services," he said. 

With a minuscule wallet size of 95% of the mobile population, the dream of millions of consumers paying 50-300 monthly depending on the level of the service is still a while away, he says. 

Dhingana was also facing competition from other services like Saavn and Gaana.com, operated by Times Internet, a subsidiary of BCCL. With 7.5-million monthly active users, Gaana has just launched a new version for iPhone and Android devices

French broadcast watchdog targets YouTube, Dailymotion

France's CSA broadcasting authority said today it wants to target video-sharing sites like YouTube and Dailymotion to force them to contribute to financing French culture. 

In a report, the CSA said the sites fall in the same category as video-on-demand services so would be subject to French cultural protection laws that require distributors to hand over some of their revenues to help subsidise productions. 

"These platforms... have for years been developing partnerships with audiovisual publishers and content providers, with which they share revenues from advertising," the report said. 

It urged the government to carry out a study of the sites' revenues from professional productions and determine how much they may be required to pay.

Alibaba rival JD.com to top sales target this year

 

JD.com, China's second-largest e-commerce site, is set to exceed 100 billion yuan ($16.47billion) in annual sales for the first time in a market that has drawn investment from global retailing names such as Amazon and Wal-Mart. 

Sales volumes will likely eclipse the company's target of 100 billion yuan compared with 60 billion yuan in 2012, JD.com said in a press release on Monday. The smaller rival of China's Alibaba Group Holding said it has broken even for the first three quarters of the year and may turn profitable at any time, declining to be more specific. China's business-to-consumer e-commerce sales may surpass $180 billion this year due to a rising Internet penetration rate, expanding middle-class incomes and a steadily improving distribution network, according to New York-based market research firm eMarketer. 

The country's e-commerce prospects have attracted investment from Wal-Mart, which now owns roughly 51% of Chinese e-tailer Yihaodian. Amazon bought e-tailer Joyo.com in 2004, which eventually became Amazon China. "The market itself is growing, we're also growing our market share," JD.com's Chief Operating Officer Shen Haoyu told Reuters on Monday. "People are getting more comfortable with buying online." 

As a private company, JD.com does not release revenue figures, and would not say if it broke even in previous years. "We're not making crazy money, but we're not losing crazy money," Shen said. 

JD.com, previously known as 360Buy, has done well enough to attract foreign investors. Over the past six years, it has secured $2.23 billion from investors, including the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan and Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal's Kingdom Holding Co, using these funds to expand its logistics network and employ aggressive pricing tactics. But despite its fast growth, JD.com still stands in the shadow of its main B2C competitor, Alibaba's Tmall, which dominates 51.1% of the market, according to Chinese Internet market research firm iResearch. JD.com has 17.5% and Amazon China controls just 2.6%. 

JD.com has tried to differentiate itself by operating its own network of couriers and warehouses, a factor it says ensures timely and efficient delivery. Tmall and Alibaba's online B2Bmarketplace Taobao still depend on merchants and external courier firms for their logistics. "If they can continue to build their niche in the marketplace, because of their reputation for good service, their reputation for good products... they have firm ground to stand on," said Ben Cavender, principal analyst at China Market Research Group. But the gap between the two competitors is still large. During a 12-day sale centred around China's equivalent of Cyber Monday, JD.com's turnover reached $1.6 billion, far less than Tmall and Taobao, which had one-day turnover of $5.7 billion combined.

Christmas is Black Friday for apps amid download record

When Walt Disney Co began considering the best time to release an iPad version of its popular online kids game "Club Penguin" this year, only one date came to mind. "It was all designed to lead up to Christmas," said Chris Heatherly, the head of Club Penguin. Disney anticipates getting about half of its yearly subscribers for the virtual-world game during the week of Christmas - and especially on the holiday itself. "It's definitely our prime time," he said. 

Disney's strategy illustrates how Christmas has become the most lucrative day of the year for makers of mobile applications, in what is now the equivalent of a Black Friday for retailers or a Cyber Monday for e-commerce companies. That's because December 25 is the day that people take the wraps off gifts of smartphones and tablets - immediately spurring many to download games, productivity tools and other apps from Apple's App Store and Google's Play store. 

This Christmas is projected to set another record for app downloads, following 328-million downloads last December 25 - the busiest day ever - and 36% above 2011, according to analytics firm Flurry. According to a Harris survey commissioned by mobile-app and website-testing company Soasta, 30% of Americans plan to download an app on December 25. 

"One of the first things you do when you get a shiny new present is you want to take it for a test run," said Marcos Sanchez, vice-president at App Annie, a company that measures app downloads. "It's the magical trifecta of something new, time to waste and wanting to fill your time with fun stuff." 

While many developers like Disney plan all year for a Christmas rush, a final blitz comes in the last few weeks. Apple's offices close between December 21 and December 27, leading app makers to rush to get their updates submitted and approved before the deadline. A plug from Apple on the front page of the App Store guarantees a flood of downloads. 

Apple said earlier this year that 2-billion apps were downloaded last December, a monthly record. Tom Neumayr, a spokesman for the Cupertino, California-based company, declined to comment further. Christopher Katsaros, a spokesman for Mountain View, California-based Google, didn't return requests for comment. 

The holiday surge has created a dogfight among developers to get noticed in an increasingly crowded market. Apple's App Store and Google Play each have more than a million apps available. 

Some developers use straightforward tactics to grab attention, such as introducing new titles, cutting prices and hunting for press. Others use digital-advertising campaigns to manipulate Apple's rankings by guaranteeing a certain number of downloads and better visibility in the App Store.

Christmas is Black Friday for apps amid download record

When Walt Disney Co began considering the best time to release an iPad version of its popular online kids game "Club Penguin" this year, only one date came to mind. "It was all designed to lead up to Christmas," said Chris Heatherly, the head of Club Penguin. Disney anticipates getting about half of its yearly subscribers for the virtual-world game during the week of Christmas - and especially on the holiday itself. "It's definitely our prime time," he said. 

Disney's strategy illustrates how Christmas has become the most lucrative day of the year for makers of mobile applications, in what is now the equivalent of a Black Friday for retailers or a Cyber Monday for e-commerce companies. That's because December 25 is the day that people take the wraps off gifts of smartphones and tablets - immediately spurring many to download games, productivity tools and other apps from Apple's App Store and Google's Play store. 

This Christmas is projected to set another record for app downloads, following 328-million downloads last December 25 - the busiest day ever - and 36% above 2011, according to analytics firm Flurry. According to a Harris survey commissioned by mobile-app and website-testing company Soasta, 30% of Americans plan to download an app on December 25. 

"One of the first things you do when you get a shiny new present is you want to take it for a test run," said Marcos Sanchez, vice-president at App Annie, a company that measures app downloads. "It's the magical trifecta of something new, time to waste and wanting to fill your time with fun stuff." 

While many developers like Disney plan all year for a Christmas rush, a final blitz comes in the last few weeks. Apple's offices close between December 21 and December 27, leading app makers to rush to get their updates submitted and approved before the deadline. A plug from Apple on the front page of the App Store guarantees a flood of downloads. 

Apple said earlier this year that 2-billion apps were downloaded last December, a monthly record. Tom Neumayr, a spokesman for the Cupertino, California-based company, declined to comment further. Christopher Katsaros, a spokesman for Mountain View, California-based Google, didn't return requests for comment. 

The holiday surge has created a dogfight among developers to get noticed in an increasingly crowded market. Apple's App Store and Google Play each have more than a million apps available. 

Some developers use straightforward tactics to grab attention, such as introducing new titles, cutting prices and hunting for press. Others use digital-advertising campaigns to manipulate Apple's rankings by guaranteeing a certain number of downloads and better visibility in the App Store.

Livescribe 3, a pen that records as you write

In the Venn diagram showing 'People Who Prefer to Take Notes on Paper' along with the 'People Who Want to Store Their Notes Digitally', the overlap is 'People Who Might Buy a Livescribe 3 pen'.

Without a doubt, the pen contains some amazing technology. A tiny camera inside the device records the ballpoint pen's movement across special dotted paper made to be used with the device. Everything you write or draw during a conversation, interview, meeting or lecture on the dotted paper is transmitted to a nearby iPad or iPhone running the free Livescribe app. You can convert the handwritten notes to text and tag sections with keywords.

But it gets better. The pen can also record the audio of a conversation or lecture. If you want to go back to a specific section of the audio, perhaps to check that you wrote the correct word, tap the stylus (on the other end of the pen) on that word in your notes. The audio recording will be played back from that point.

You will have to carry the iPad or iPhone along with the special notepad if you want an aural recording of the session. The glossy black pen is well-balanced and comfortable to use, like a large Mont Blanc. The special dot paper is now widely available, comes in various formats like bound journals, pads and even sticky notes, and isn't much more expensive than regular paper.

The pen costs $150 or $200 for a pen with less chrome and more accessories.