Tuesday, 25 February 2014
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TCS top IT service provider in Europe, Middle East
Global software major Tata Consulting Services (TCS) has
been ranked number one IT service provider for the manufacturing
industry in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) by leading analyst
firm International Data Corporation (IDC).
"The
study we conducted revealed that TCS has demonstrated an ability to
deliver a range of services to European manufacturing enterprises, as
also confirmed by its key clients," IDC head for manufacturing insights
Pierfrancesco Manenti said in a statement here.
The
study and ranking help decision-makers in the manufacturing industry
achieve their business goals by providing an independent view of the
performance of leading IT vendors operating in EMEA.
"Manufacturers
are under pressure to reduce operational expenditure and increase
efficiencies, while maintaining product quality and meeting safety and
regulatory norms," TCS global head for manufacturing industry solutions
Milind Lakkad said in the statement.
The study recognised TCS' track record for designing and implementing systems for some of the region's leading companies.
TCS partners with manufacturers across verticals to help transform their business models and implement technology solutions.
"Our
solutions also benefit clients to improve time-to-market for new
product releases, as each solution is tailored to ensure each business
can meet its objectives within the regulatory parameters," Lakkad said.
The
Indian IT bellwether was ranked as the overall leader on five key
processes and as the outstanding leader in manufacturing operations
management.
"The advent of next generation
technologies is reshaping the nature and context of the industry, making
it necessary for us to assess the content, structure, and model of the
IT services space," Lakkad noted.
TCS is also
devising new software solutions to help businesses deliver process
improvements using their present capacity and resources.
The
study focused on the processes of most importance to the manufacturing
industry to generate a sector-specific analysis to help them make
informed-decisions.
The processes include
supply chain management, product life cycle management and engineering,
manufacturing operations management, enterprise resource planning and
customer relationship management.
15 Technology Training Centres to be set up across country
The Centre would set up 15 Technology Training Centres in the
country during the current five year plan with an outlay of Rs 2,200
crore, Union Minister of State for Micro Small and Medium Enterprises
(MSME) K H Muniyappa said today.
Laying the
foundation for a Rs 100 crore Technology Training Centre at the IT Park
here, he said the MSME ministry had already set up 18 such training
centres. He said manufacturing industries' contributed over 15 per cent
of the country's GDP.
'Which (blank) are you?' Online quizzes go viral
For a compulsive online quiz-taker like Chrissy Noh, the temptation was too great to resist: ``Which sandwich are you?''
After
answering a series of unscientific, seemingly unrelated questions,
which included selecting her favorite doughnut from a lineup of frosted
pastries, the New Yorker had her answer (grilled cheese). And she's not
the only one who's comparing herself to sandwiches lately.
A
recent explosion of silly online personality quizzes, most of them
created by the young social media mavens at Buzzfeed.com, has Americans
talking about which of the 50 states they really ought to be living in
and which Harry Potter character they really are. Buzzfeed says the
quizzes are smashing traffic records and generating more Facebook
comment threads than any viral posts in the site's history.
Experts
say the phenomenon isn't surprising given the age-old fascination with
that central question, ``Who AM I?'', and a desire to compare ourselves
with others in a social media-obsessed society.
On
a recent snowy day, the 37-year-old Noh admitted that she and several
friends spent the afternoon taking quizzes and texting each other screen
shots of the results. ``It turned into an all-day group text message
fest, where it was just picture after picture of, oh, what rapper are
you?'' she says, laughing. ``What career should you actually have? Which
sandwich are you? Which member of One Direction should you marry?''
Personality
quizzes have been around for decades, gracing the covers of women's and
teen magazines with questions designed to lure us in. Nor are they new
to the Internet, where online quizzes can be found aplenty on sites like
Zimbio.com, among others. But the recent wave of quiz popularity can be
traced directly to Buzzfeed's New York City headquarters, where a team
of about 100 content creators have been producing one to five quizzes
every single day for the past two months.
The most popular quiz, ``Which State Do You Actually Belong In?'', has generated about 41 million page views.
``For
our most viral quizzes, the results have to be meaningful in some
way,'' says Summer Burton, BuzzFeed's managing editorial director.
``It's not that they are scientific. It's just that what they say means
something to people as far as their own identity.''
A QUIZ FOR EVERYONE
A
scroll through the ``QUIZZES'' page on Buzzfeed.com reveals a
bewildering assortment, many infused with pop culture references. Which
celebrity cat are you? Which pop diva? Which ``Girls'' character? What
career should you actually have? Which generation do you actually belong
in? What kind of dog would you be?
The
intense push to pump out as many quizzes as possible started a couple of
months ago after Buzzfeed editors realized that a quiz called ``Which
`Grease' Pink Lady are you?'' ranked among the most-trafficked posts of
2013. Then, in mid-January, a quiz called ``Which city should you
actually live in?'' went viral, and the whole venture just took off like
wildfire, Burton says.
The ability to create a
quiz was encoded into Buzzfeed's in-house content management system a
little more than a year ago. Essentially any staff member has the
autonomy to create one. There are no specific rules regarding
quiz-making, but each one follows the same age-old general format: You
start with the results and work backward based on general personality
traits that go with each answer.
``If you take
a `Parks and Rec' quiz and you get Leslie Knope, then you're very
enthusiastic,'' Burton says. ``It's almost like you pick three or four
adjectives, and then those kind of go into figuring out what the answers
for each question are going to be. And assigning them to a result.''
Staff
members generate the quiz ideas themselves and create the entire thing
on their own, though they do receive an edit and feedback before the
quizzes are published.
The trick to creating
an addictive personality quiz is similar to the art of writing a good
horoscope. It has to be broad and all-encompassing yet make people
believe the answer applies to them personally. We know there's little
substance to them, and yet we can't seem to stop taking them.
What
makes these online quizzes so alluring is that they can be
instantaneously shared with hundreds of friends on Facebook for instant
feedback, says Denise Friedman, who teaches psychology at Roanoke
College in Salem, Virginia.
``In our age,
we're constantly reflecting on who we are, and technology has really
changed the way we interact,'' Friedman says. ``I think we are
constantly engaging in social comparison and thinking about where we
stand.''
`A WAY TO KILL TIME'
John
Egan, 50, who lives in Austin, Texas, says he gets sucked into the
quizzes partly because he's curious about himself, and because he
wonders how his answers will stack up against his Facebook friends'. But
the quizzes have little staying power in his brain.
``It's
kind of this momentary thrill, if you will, and then you move on. And
it's like a shiny object: `Oh, there's another quiz!''' he said.
The quizzes are overwhelmingly upbeat and lighthearted in nature, a calculated decision by the people engineering them.
``Quizzes
are an investment of someone's time,'' Burton says. ``So it feels like
it would almost be mean for someone to go through the process of taking
the quiz and have it say, `You're really cynical and negative and nobody
likes being around you.'''
And you can take
them over and over until you get the answer that validates your own
assumptions about yourself. Noh says she may have taken the ``Which
rapper are you?'' quiz quite a few times until she was satisfied with
the result.
``I kept getting Eminem, which I
was unhappy about,'' she says. ``I was like, `I really want Kanye, so
I'm gonna answer these questions until I get Kanye West.'''
Samsung unveils smart cameras with NFC, WiFi sharing options
Korean electronics major Samsung today unveiled a new
range of smart cameras with advanced NFC and Wi-Fi capabilities priced
in the range of Rs 12,490-21,290 for the Indian market.
The
cameras come pre-loaded with suite of standard Smart Mode and Smart
Auto Mode features, which allows the user to capture photographs with an
unparallelled level of customisation and functionality, Samsung said in
a release.
Smart Mode allows for a number of
different customisation and personalisation settings, while Smart Auto
analyses shooting environments and selects the most optimal settings for
any situation, it added.
"The new line-up
includes the WB35F, WB50F, WB350F and WB1100F offering superb image
quality and next-generation sharing capability, offering photographers
of all abilities a great way to capture and share their world," it
said.
Besides, the brand new Tag & Go
feature takes sharing seamlessly connects the cameras with smartphones
by touching the two devices together, no configuration is required.
The
Photo Beam feature immediately transfers the image being viewed on the
camera to a smartphone or tablet, while AutoShare saves images straight
to the device in real time, removing the burden of manually backing up
pictures.
"Remote Viewfinder offers
flexibility when setting up shots, as the camera can be controlled via a
smartphone to act as a viewfinder, while Mobile Link allows transfer of
selected images to smartphones, making sharing quick and easy," Samsung
said.
On pricing, Samsung said, WB35F is
priced at Rs 12,490, while WB50F, WB350F and WB1100F are available at Rs
14,990, Rs 21,490 and Rs 20,990, respectively.
"With
the addition of these new models, Samsung's digital still cameras
portfolio now has a complete lineup of 9 digital cameras priced between
Rs 7,190-Rs 58,900.
Mozilla plans Rs 1,500 smartphone for emerging markets
Technology firm Mozilla has showcased a smartphone
prototype for developing countries, which could cost as less as $ 25
(about Rs 1,500).
The company, which runs the Firefox browser, has partnered with Chinese low-cost chip maker Spreadtrum.
"In
2014, we are differentiating our user experience and our partners are
growing the portfolio of devices. We are also enabling a whole new
category of smartphone, priced around $ 25, that will bring even more
people around the world online," Mozilla Chief Operating Officer Jay
Sullivan said.
Firefox OS devices are the
first devices built entirely to open Web standards, with every feature
developed as an HTML5 application.
"We
launched our first smartphones in July, and have since expanded into 15
markets. People in Latin America and Eastern Europe have eagerly
upgraded from their feature phones to Firefox OS smartphones. Sales have
far exceeded our targets. But 2013 was just the beginning," Sullivan
said.
The devices from Mozilla's stable are
expected to see stiff competition, especially from Chinese and Taiwanese
handset makers like Huawei and ZTE.
Since
last year, Firefox OS devices have gone on sale in 15 markets with four
global operators and handsets from three manufacturers.
Firefox OS will be expanding into important new markets in 2014.
However, no details on the availability of the devices in India was disclosed.
IIM Ahmedabad wraps up placement process in three clusters
IIM Ahmedabad has wrapped up final placements for its
378-strong class of 2014 within three clusters, one short of the four
planned for.
More than 125 firms participated
in the process this year, including the laterals with Accenture Strategy
emerging the top recruiter across segments, picking up 18 students.
Among
global investment banks, HSBC was the largest recruiter, making offers
to nine students for roles in investment banking, corporate banking and
private banking. In the strategy-consulting space, The Boston Consulting
Group made 15 offers to students while AT Kearney, Bain & Co and
McKinsey & Co extended seven offers each.
In
the niche consulting domain, EXL was the highest recruiter with eight
offers. Hindustan Unilever was a leading recruiter in the consumer space
with six offers. Reliance Industries was the largest recruiter among
general management firms with eight offers, while Amazon led in the
technology space with 15 offers.
Latent View
and Samsung made seven offers to students for roles in data analytics
and business development. The placement process was conducted in two
stages. The first was the laterals process where firms interviewed
students with work experience and offered them mid-level managerial
positions. The second stage was the final placement process where firms
were grouped into cohorts based on the profile offered, and groups of
cohorts were invited to campus across different clusters. About 50% of
the batch was eligible for lateral placements.
Firms
across diverse sectors such as analytics, BFSI, consulting, consumer
services, pharmaceuticals and technology, participated in the process
including Aditya Birla Group, Amazon, Google, Infosys, Latent View,
Microsoft, Star TV India amongst others. This apart, companies from
multiple sectors hired for a wide range of functions.
Recruiters
in the consulting space included Booz and Co, Ernst & Young, EXL,
KPMG, McKinsey & Co, Oliver Wyman, TSMG amongst others. The
financial services sector saw participation from global investment banks
including Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citibank, Credit Suisse,
Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Morgan Stanley, Nomura, Royal Bank
of Scotland, UBS amongst others.
Sales and
marketing roles were offered by the likes of Airtel, Asian Paints, HUL,
ITC, Kraft and Nestle, among others. Aditya Birla Group, CK Birla Group,
General Electric, Mahindra, Reliance Industries offered general
management and leadership profiles.
From the
technology space, there was Amazon, Cognizant, Google, HCL, Infosys,
Latent View, Microsoft, Samsung among others. A number of first-time
recruiters such as Embibe.com, Fractal Analytics, Kepler Cannon amongst
others participated in the placement process.
This
year, 13 students opted out of the placement process to start their own
ventures including an IT solutions venture to support the logistics and
transportation sector, a platform for improving the agriculture
supply-chain, amongst others.
10 mobile technologies CIOs should master till 2015
Multiplatform/Multiarchitecture Application Development Tools
Most organizations will need application development tools to support a "3 x 3" future three key platforms (Android, iOS and Windows) and three application architectures (native, hybrid and mobile Web). Tool selection will be a complex balancing act, trading off many technical and nontechnical issues (such as productivity versus vendor stability), and most large organizations will need a portfolio of several tools to deliver to the architectures and platforms they require.
HTML5
HTML5 won't be a simple panacea for mobile application portability because it's fragmented and immature and therefore poses many implementation and security risks. However, as HTML5 and its development tools mature, the popularity of the mobile Web and hybrid applications will increase. Hence, despite many challenges, HTML5 will be an essential technology for organizations delivering applications across multiple platforms.
Advanced Mobile User Experience Design
Leading mobile apps are delivering exceptional user experiences, which are achieved by a variety of new techniques and methodologies, such as motivational design, "quiet" design and "playful" interfaces. Designers are also creating apps that can accommodate mobile challenges, such as partial user attention and interruption, or that can exploit technologies with novel features or "wow" factors, such as augmented reality. Leading consumer apps are setting high standards for user interface design, and all organizations must master new skills and work with new partners to meet growing user expectations.
High-Precision Location Sensing
Knowing an individual's location to within a few meters is a key enabler of the delivery of highly relevant contextual information and services. Apps exploiting precise indoor location currently use technologies such as Wi-Fi, imaging, ultrasonic beacons and geomagnetics. In 2014, Gartner expects growth in the use of wireless beacons using the new Bluetooth Smart standard. In the longer term, technologies such as smart lighting will also become important. Precise indoor location sensing, combined with mobile apps, will enable a new generation of extremely personalized services and information.
Wearable Devices
The smartphone will become the hub of a personal-area network consisting of wearable gadgets such as on-body healthcare sensors, smart jewelry, smart watches, display devices (like Google Glass) and a variety of sensors embedded in clothes and shoes. These gadgets will communicate with mobile apps to deliver information in new ways and enable a wide range of products and services in areas such as sport, fitness, fashion, hobbies and healthcare.
New Wi-Fi Standards
Emerging Wi-Fi standards such as 802.11ac (Waves 1 and 2), 11ad, 11aq and 11ah will increase Wi-Fi performance, make Wi-Fi more relevant to applications such as telemetry, and enable Wi-Fi to provide new services. Over the next three years, demands on Wi-Fi infrastructure will increase as more Wi-Fi-enabled devices appear in organizations, as cellular offloading becomes more popular, and as applications such as location sensing demand denser access-point placement. The opportunities enabled by new standards and the performance required by new applications will require many organizations to revise or replace their Wi-Fi infrastructure.
Enterprise Mobile Management
"Enterprise mobile management" or "EMM" is a term that describes the future evolution and convergence of several mobile management, security and support technologies. These include mobile device management, mobile application management, application wrapping and containerization, and some elements of enterprise file synchronization and sharing. Such tools will mature, grow in scope and eventually address a wide range of mobile management needs across all popular OSs on smartphones, tablets and PCs.
Mobile-Connected Smart Objects
By 2020, the average affluent household in a mature market will contain several hundred smart objects, including LED light bulbs, toys, domestic appliances, sports equipment, medical devices and controllable power sockets, to name but a few. These domestic smart objects will be a part of the Internet of Things, and most will be able to communicate in some way with an app on a smartphone or tablet. Smartphones and tablets will perform many functions, including acting as remote controls, displaying and analyzing information, interfacing with social networks to monitor "things" that can tweet or post, paying for subscription services, ordering replacement consumables and updating object firmware.
LTE and LTE-A
Long Term Evolution (LTE) and its successor LTE Advanced (LTE-A) are cellular technologies that improve spectral efficiency and will push cellular networks to theoretical peak downlink speeds of up to 1 Gbps, while reducing latency. All mobile users will benefit from improved bandwidth, and superior performance combined with new features such as LTE Broadcast will enable network operators to offer new services.
Metrics and Monitoring Tools
The diversity of mobile devices makes comprehensive app testing impossible, and the nondeterministic nature of mobile networks and the cloud services that support them can result in performance bottlenecks that are hard to locate. Mobile metrics and monitoring tools, often known as application performance monitoring (APM), can help. APM provides visibility into app behavior, delivers statistics about which devices and OSs are adopted, and monitors user behavior to determine which app features are being successfully exploited.
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