SMAC: Combining technologies is the next big infotech revolution

In November 2011, during an earnings call with analysts, Cognizant CEO Francisco D'Souza spoke of the company's big investments in social, mobile, analytics, cloud (SMAC): "Today, SMAC collectively represents a very small percent of revenue. Our goal there is not necessarily short-term revenue."

Although the company coined the acronym widely used in the industry, Cognizant was not expecting big revenues quickly from SMAC. It is set to earn $500 million (about Rs 3,000 crore) in 2013 from its SMAC division, set up early this year.

Gordon Coburn, president of Cognizant, said at a technology conference in Boston last month: "If you had to ask me two years ago, would it be $0.5 billion, not in my wildest dreams. That shift has happened really quickly."

The year 2013 was a watershed for the IT industry, as one of the most powerful forces in its history started taking roots quickly. Social, mobile, analytics and cloud are technologies that have been present for a few years, but this year they started combining and growing together as a bunch, feeding off and reinforcing each other. Never in the history of the IT industry have so many trends happened simultaneously, and never have they combined so powerfully. "When you combine technologies," says Sanjay Purohit, global head of products, platforms and solutions at Infosys, "they grow exponentially."

Ahmedabad firm launches app for foodies

The hospitality industry has a new app to to increase its market presence and directly connect with customers using mobile as a medium. Ahmedabad-based firm, Azilen Technologies, has launched Spoonzo — a food ordering application that allows people to browse menu and order food from a restaurant.

With Spoonzo, customers can go to the restaurants, simply scan the QR code on the tables, get the menu and place their orders from their phones without waiting for the waiter.

The app allows for easy menu navigation and food selection, direct order from your smartphone, quick call for various services, save preferred dishes and favourite restaurants, avail the latest offers and promotions and provides ratings and reviews about the restaurant.

Naresh Prajapati, chief executive officer and co-founder of Azilen Technologies, said, "Digitizisation of menu is the next evolutionary step for restaurants that are looking to increase customer awareness and loyalty, and offer their valued guests a modern and interactive way to order food as well as receive personalized and interactive service. We also want to create a strong platform which connects restaurants and customers through brand and menu loyalty and we would also initiate a digital campaigning which tells you what your friends are ordering and what is trending at the moment."

Some restaurants in Ahmedabad have started using the app to connect with their customers. Vikas Punjabi, managing director, The Chocolate Room, said, "The app ushers in a global feel for our customers and helps us to deliver them more customized services and enhance brand loyalty. Our experiences with Spoonzo in last few months have been really amazing and result oriented."

Heritage museums turning to social media to attract new visitors

 

Curators of a small but rising number of heritage museums in cities such as Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata are looking to create a buzz in digital space through Facebook pages, web portals, smartphone apps and even by offering virtual tour on Google Art.

"We have a lot of art programs and workshops which are vibrant in nature and catered to students, teenagers and even art enthusiasts. Social media forms the best way to spread awareness about these events as well as the museum," Bilwa Kulkarni, education officer at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, said.

Recently, visitors to the Facebook page of this Mumbai-based museum, formerly known as thePrince of Wales Museum of Western India, were greeted with a quirky post: 'Mummy: The Inside Story'. It was about an upcoming exhibition on European civilization and generated much curiosity that translated into more than three lakh visitors to the exhibition that lasted about four months.

The Victoria Memorial Hall in Kolkata, Delhi-based National Museum and Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum in Mumbai are among the other museums in the country looking to engage people through social media. Victoria Memorial Hall — conceived by then viceroy of India Lord Curzon as a tribute to Queen Victoria — is in talks with Prasar Bharati to film a documentary that would be posted on YouTube and Facebook. "The documentary will picture a better idea about the museum," Dr Jayanta Sengupta, secretary-cum-curator at Victoria Memorial Hall, said.

It was also the third Indian museum — after National Gallery of Modern Art, Delhi, and National Museum, Delhi — to be featured on Google Art, the Internet giant's project to allow virtual tour of some top art institutions around the world.

Victoria Memorial Hall, the most visited museum in the country with 18 lakh visitors in 2012-2013, plans to launch a smartphone app soon to help the visitors with an audio tour.

The Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya too plans smartphone applications for visitors. "We are working on the idea of creating mobile applications for the museum which will be geared at spreading information about the museum, visiting the museum and upcoming activities," Kulkarni said.

The museum's Twitter page too shall be active within a month, she said. Vijay Kumar Mathur, curator at National Museum, Delhi, said, "Every international museum has a strong presence on Facebook and nowadays when everyone is so connected to the medium, it was the next logical step for us to be a part of it."

Indian museums, however, are trailing international institutions in taking to social media to attract visitors from around the world.

"All major international cultural institutions are in a big way on social media," Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, director of Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum in Mumbai, said. "In terms of what they are doing, we are slightly backward and need to strengthen our presence," she added. Mehta targets more than 50,000 followers for the museum's Facebook page, up from around 2,000 now.

Youth forms more than 70% of it visitors and Mehta plans to attract more of them. "Since the next generation is all accustomed to using smartphones and tablets, we are planning to introduce tablets/iPads inside the museum, which will have all the information about the collection in the museum, pictures, commentary by the curators, etc," she said.

The tablet will be available within the museum for an amount of `100 for visitors, said Mehta, who is also the vice-chairman of the Indian National Trust For Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), which is campaigning to get Delhi crowned as an UNESCO world heritage city.

INTACH, too, has chalked out several programmes through social media to garner support for India's first nomination for a world heritage city.

Annabel Lopez, project coordinator at INTACH, said, "We have to prove that our nomination is worthy and we have to have the confidence of various stakeholders — government, NGOs and the citizens — which is possible to a great extent through social media," she added.

 

INTACH has been conducting various educational campaigns, heritage walks and radio shows that are promoted through social networking websites to showcase the Mughal walled city of Shahjahanabad, or Old Delhi, and the colonial capital city of Lutyens Delhi among others.

"Social media has helped in reaching out to young people and we have had volunteers from schools and colleges who come during winter breaks and want to volunteer for the project," Lopez said. In January more than a thousand schools and around one lakh students from Delhi are expected to back the INTACH campaign on Facebook in the run up to submit the final dossier for Delhi's world heritage city status.

The Indian Museum in Kolkata, the country's largest museum that is currently closed for revamp, too is generating interest on its Facebook page with more than 300 requests daily. "Our Facebook page talks about all the new features that would be added to the revamped museums," Sayan Bhattacharya, education officer at Indian Museum, said.

Blast from the past: 1970s games revived on Internet

For those old enough to remember console games like "Asteroids" or "Red Baron," from the 1970s and 1980s: the games are back.

The Internet Archive this week launched its "Console Living Room," offering browser emulations of pre-Internet era video games which used to be played on consoles from firms likeAtari, Coleco or Magnavox.

"For a generation of children, the most exciting part of a Christmas morning was discovering a large box under the tree, ripping it apart, and looking at an exciting, colorful box promising endless video games. At home! Right in your living room!," said Jason Scott of the Internet Archive in a blog post.

Scott added that the games are being adapted by "an army of volunteer elves" who "will be improving them across the next few days."

"Sound is still not enabled, but is coming soon," he said. The initiative "harkens back to the revolution of the change in the hearth of the home, when the fireplace and later television were transformed by gaming consoles into a center of videogame entertainment," says the Web page devoted to the games.

The effort will enable a new generation to discover games that used to be on a cartridge inserted into a console, with titles including "Ninja Golf," and "Ms. Pac-Man."

The games, with crude graphics and sounds compared to today's programs, are still valued by nostalgia buffs who recall their pioneering technology which brought games into the home from video arcades.

The Internet Archive, known for its "Wayback Machine" which keeps websites even after they are shut down was founded in 1996 and helps researchers, historians, scholars and others find historical collections that exist in digital format. 

'Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4' leaked

While the South Korean giant hasn't made an official announcement, a new Galaxy tablet has surfaced on US certification agency FCC's website.

The new tablet, bearing model number SamsungSM-T320, is expected to be called the Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 and positioned as a high-end tablet.

The listing does not reveal much except that the tablet would support Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth, and have a rear camera.

Import data from Indian agency Zauba reveals that the tablet, imported from Korea for testing, would feature an 8.4-inch screen. It quotes the price of the prototype as Rs 34,941. While this price may not be the final retail price, it suggests that the tablet could be positioned as a premium offering.

The report says that the tablet will be unveiled mid-February, which implies that Samsung is likely to showcase it at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

Samsung is also expected to unveil its second-generation Galaxy Gear smartwatch, two phablets and its first health-band at MWC.

Vineet Nayar retires from HCL's board

HCL Technologies, the country's fourth largest IT services firm, said that its director and former CEO Vineet Nayar would retire from the company's board to devote more time to his foundation.

The IT industry veteran, after having spent more than two decades with HCL Technologies, stepped down from the post of CEO in January this year to make way for the next generation of leaders to steer the company. He, however, continued to work as vice-chairman and joint managing director of the company.

Nayar, who has been a director in the company since 2008, has been appointed as senior advisor to HCL Technologiesand HCL Corporation, read a statement from HCL. Vineet will adviseHCL Corporation on key strategic issues and also work with the board of HCL Technologies on initiatives such as driving a high performance culture amongst senior managers and new strategies for growth.

"Vineet has been a friend and a colleague for over two decades now. His bold ideas and passion for the organisation, has inspired many others to think and dream big. His contribution to HCL and the board has been a benchmark for others to follow and we all are very proud of him. On behalf of the board, I thank him for all that he has done and I look forward to his continued association with HCL as a senior advisor," said Shiv Nadar, chief strategy officer and chairman HCL Technologies.

Commenting on this exit, Nayar said, "There are very few organisations where one could rise up the ranks and become the CEO and vice chairman. I applaud Shiv for creating such a culture at HCL and thank him for his mentorship, guidance and friendship over these years."

Nayar had off-loaded his entire stock holding in HCL Technologies for about Rs 134 crore in June last year to plough the money into his non-profit organization, Sampark.

"As I pursue my dream, of creating a 'Million Smiles' through Sampark Foundation, I carry with me goodwill, best wishes and lots of learning. I also hope to continue to add value to both HCL Technologies and HCL Corporation through my continued association. I wish all the HCLites,exciting and energized years ahead," said Nayar.