Smarttechie April 11 Issue-1

Guru Talk: Naresh Shah, Novell
VC Talk: Suvir Sujan, Nexus Venture Partners
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Two Decades of Securing Enterpises

By Vimali Swamy
Micro World
20 COVER STORY
Contents -April 2011
siliconindia
May 28 2011, Nimhans Convention Center, Bangalore
This is an exclusive business forum for entrepreneurs to meet investors, technology partners,resellers and potential customers.
The biggest event for Startups is here

Highlights
Come, Meet the 'cool startups'

Watch live product demonstrations Get a peek into cutting edge technologies Lay hands on the best-of-breed solutions Meet young, energetic, passionate geeks Platinum Sponsor
[Guru Talk] 8
In Pursuit of Excellence in Technology By Naresh Shah, Novell
Say Hello to the new Consumerized IT Workplace By Ambarish Deshpande, McAfee India
[Technology] 28
30
[In Focus] 10 [VC Talk] 16
Naresh Shah
[Top 100 B Schools of India] 32 [Event] 38
Cloud Security Challenges in Securing Enterprise Web 2.0 Applications By Abhay Bhargav, we45 Solutions India
The Need for Disaster Recovery Management Solutions in Indian Banks By Lakshman Narayanaswamy, Sanovi Technologies
[Business] 48
Over 150 Startups to showcase their products More than 40 VC rms to attend & judge the presenting Startups Awards to Best Startups Signi cant presence of partner companies and potential customers Over 6000 delegates to attend the product demos at booths Real Estate Partner
[Buyers Perspective] 50 [Event] 51
Betting High on the Enterprise Software Market Marketing Strategies Galore at SiliconIndia Marketing Symposium By Akanksha Ravindran
Silver Sponsor
[Tech Buzz] 14
Now The Best Time to Start an Internet Company in India By Suvir Sujan, Nexus Venture Partners Emerging Trend Potential for IT Service Providers to Obtain PE / VC Funding By Rajeev Srivastava, Basil Growth Fund
Siliconindia MAC Mumbai divests an insight into Indian Mobile Market By Akanksha Ravindran
[Buyers Perspective]52 [Event] 53
Technology Partner
Media Partner
The android Mania By Arvind Sharma, Longcheer India
[Technology] 40 [Event] 41
Building Expertise in Specialized Technology Offerings 200 HR Professionals come together @ Silicon India HR Symposium By Akanksha Ravindran
Exhibitors
17
SiliconIndias SoftTec Probes Deep into IT Testing By Akanksha Ravindran
54
[Venture Beat] 18 [Technology] 24
42
Women in Leadership: An Insight By Akanksha Ravindran Beyond Onboarding Integrating People with the Organization By C Mahalingam, Symphony Services
What Developers Should Or Should Not Do By Anil Pochiraju, F5 Networks
[People Manager] 58
Roadmap for IP Based Surveillance Systems in India By M.Girikrishna, Silvan Innovations Lab
[Technology] 44 46
26
Cloud Computings Toughest Obstacle! By Amit Nath, Trend Micro Technology Play in Physical Safety and Security By Rakesh Goyal, Cisco Systems
[Tech Products] 58 [Event] 62
Overcome New Security Challenges with an Information-Centric Approach By Shantanu Ghosh, Symantec
Understanding Web Apps at Siliconindia Web Apps Conference 2011 By Akanksha Ravindran
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April 2011
For Speaking and Sponsorship opportunities write to events@siliconindia.com or call 080-43112181
Register now at www.siliconindia.com/events
The author is Managing Director, IDC & Vice President, Global Engineering Strategy, Novell
GURU TALK
By Naresh Shah
e number one benet of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn't think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential. Steve Ballmer support, and more However, India is found wanting when it comes strategic and innovation led solutions that drive the sector and this is mostly controlled by the West.
Naresh Shah
echnology leaders around the world maintain a high standard of technical competence along with diversity in their manpower. Organizations today require managers with sound technical and managerial capabilities in IT, to keep pace with the evolving industry. Balancing the scales between leadership and technology is a daunting task for those aspiring to climb the senior management ladder. Leadership usually takes precedence, partly because technical insights become less critical as one
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advances in their career. In India, the IT industry needs a fresh brigade of technically sound people, now more than ever. One of the biggest challenges the industry faces is the dire shortage of skilled professionals with vertical domain expertise. And for us to stay ahead of the value chain, we need to groom experts who are versatile with emerging technologies in this evolving segment. On the bright side, India can boast of a large pool of potential workforce in software development, testing, technical
Technical Ladder vs. Managerial Ladder Engineers face a dilemma as they forge a path in their careers and are up against a fork. One road leads up the technical ladder and the other is the managerial ladder. The rationale for choosing an option is often influenced significantly by myths and perceptions of the opportunities available in both paths. Technical and managerial ladders are indeed very different career choices. The managerial ladder comes with a status symbol, job responsibilities, and role expectations which are much better understood and recognized by the society than the technical ladder. By definition, technical depth implies that one has spent years developing expertise in a domain and the skills may not be easily transferable from one technical job to another. Also, the perception among IT professionals is that a smaller number of jobs are only available in the technical arena. This could be a factor for fewer professionals pursuing the technical path. Nevertheless, there is a dearth of technical experts in the industry who have chosen to remain individual contributors and can perform critical and high value chain tasks, like new product innovation and product architecture. Additionally, IT professionals are typically impatient and job hopping has
become an industry norm. This, with ca- lieve, somewhat incorrectly, that there reer mobility and its related expectations arent sufficient roles on the technical among engineers are escalating at an side for the more experienced profesalarming rate. Young engineers are gener- sionals. ally interested in acquiring skills, learning about the products they are working on, Cultural Factors aspiring to take on greater responsibilities, The role of parents and relatives in shapand in the process improving their own ing the careers of their loved ones also marketability in the industry. But after just needs to be examined. The Indian society a few years, peer pressure, comparisons to tends to push people into more traditional my college classmates, questions from and proven professions. In the West, if a the family members and relatives, etc. young daughter is passionately interested drive many professionals to change jobs, in piano music or journalism, her parents often in a very different industry vertical will let her pursue her dreams, and hope than their incumbent role. IT companies that she will become a concert player or a also need to share responsibility for this star journalist. In India, parents typically trend in encouraging the job hopping cul- discourage their daughters from pursuing ture in India. When companies want to the option of becoming a journalist or an grow quickly, they offer premium salaries entertainer and push her in to a safe cato attract talent. More than 90 percent of reer opportunity such as engineering or IT professionals have probably changed medicine. jobs at least once in the last five years. It Generation after generation in our sois hard to develop deep technical knowl- ciety has been raised to rationalize ones edge in such situations as engineers move choices in life by looking at the number from job to job acquiring a jack of all of opportunities available in an area and trades, master of none reputation. then pursuing it. It is always recDual career ladders ommended to avail of the opare present in many ortions which present the largest e technology at the ganizations. Aland safest set of opportunities, leading edge changes so though, in theory, rather than pursuing ones pasrapidly that you have to keep people can move sions and dreams. Looking at it current a er you get out of between both ladfrom a balanced perspective, school. I think probably the most ders, the switch this may make sense, but inimportant thing is having good funis not as easy, novation is not likely to matedamentals. Gordon Moore and not an oprialize unless there is a tion that many can passionate heart pursuing it. suit. As people move away from technology, their knowledge of a particular do- Leadership and Technology main diminishes, and the higher they The IT industry today has a number of ascend in the ranks, the lesser it gets. highly respected individuals who have excelled at leading their companies to the Engineers Dilemma heights of glory. There are examples of Assuming that an engineer has the ca- successful business leaders who followed pability (which is not true for all engi- the technical stream, retaining their skills neers) to pursue both paths, here is the and yet moved along the managerial dilemma in choosing an option: the stream. Look at the career progression of money/prestige quotient vs. the pursuit Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Steve Ballmer, Eric of knowledge and vertical excellence. Schmidt and the latest sensation, TIME The money factor becomes a differen- magazines 2010 person of the year Marc tiator for the managerial ladder only if Zuckerberg. one keeps rising successfully to senior These competent leaders had very management roles. Many engineers be- strong technical ideals. Their expertise re-
mained intact despite them embracing the managerial path. When a leader has really strong technical expertise, he/she can guide the organization in a new and visionary direction through their skills and conviction.
When you innovate, you've got to be prepared for everyone telling you you're nuts Larry Ellison
The Way Forward The Indian IT industry will benefit with increased innovation, creativity, and technological advancement, only by individuals pursuing their passion and by building strong technical proficiency. Engineering excellence cannot be achieved without inspiring employees to truly follow their heart, which is the very reason why many of them choose to pursue engineering in the first place. The task for leaders of technology companies in India today is to encourage, develop, and groom technically competent people who remain committed to technology. At the same time, managers, especially younger managers, should continue to remain engaged and up-to-date with technological advances. This will increase the organizations capacity to forge ahead in the technology race. Technology is evolving at a fast pace, and for a leader to envisage the future IT roadmap of the organization, demands honing strong technical skills while picking up several other soft skills such as people management, communication, leadership, and more Engineers in turn need to rise to the challenge and pursue a career in technical competence. And needless to state, these specialists are bound to have many more opportunities with greater rewards being offered to them in the technical arena. The new era beckons people to step forward, to defy norms and bridge the gap in the IT industry. India can stop resting on its laurels of product development and execution and truly move into a new realm by building impetus towards product conceptualization and futuristic technologies.
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Net commerce in India to reach Rs 46,520 crores in 2011

he Indian ecommerce industry is expected to grow by 47 percent and touch Rs 46,520 crore by end of 2011. This was indicated in a study by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI). The report said that the market which was at Rs 8,146 crores in 2007 came a long way from there and reached an estimated Rs 31,598 crores by 2010. The report also points out that it is the online travel industry that is leading the market. The online travel industry was Rs 6250 crores in 2007 contributing about 77 percent of the industry then. In December 2010 this industry stood at Rs 25,258 crores, about 80 percent of the total ecom-
any Indians and IndoAmericans are included in the list of Young Global Leaders for 2011. The list by the World Economic Forum consists of 190 individuals from 65 countries. According to the forum, the people who received the Young Global Leaders award received it for their professional accomplishments, commitment to society and potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world. The list includes Indo-American personalities like Nikki Haley, South Carolina Governor; Vivek Kundra, U.S. Chief Information Officer; Gita
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Many Indians gain position in the Young Global Leaders list
merce market and is expected to grow to Rs 37890 crores by December 2011. As of 2009, second to online travel comes eTailing with 7.82 percent share which equals to Rs 1,550 crores. In eTailing, computers and computer peripherals account for Rs 560.52 crores while cameras, mobiles and
MP3 players contribute Rs 389 crores. Other major contributors to net commerce include online classifieds (jobs, online matrimonial, cars, real estate and others), buying movie tickets, food delivery and gaming subscription is estimated to be Rs 1,210 crores. Financial service transactions over the Internet comprise nearly 7.8 percent of the market size, which is about Rs 1,540 crores. According to the report Indian online users have exhibited willingness to make purchases over the Internet and this attributes to the growth in net commerce industry. Given the increasing awareness and acknowledgement, the overall industry is set to experience a high growth in the next couple of years.
niversity of Buffalos Provost Satish K. Tripathi is recommended by Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher of the State University of New York as the next president of the university. It would make Dr. Tripathi, UB's 15th president and the first born outside the United States and leader of the largest public university in the state during what's considered a critical time in its history. Tripathi is an internationally recognized computer scientist who joined UB as Provost - the university's chief academic officer on the 1st of July, 2004, after serving as dean of the Bourns College of Engineering at the University of California, Riverside. This opportunity will make him, who was born in the village Patna of Uttar Pradesh, the first Indian American to head a Research University which is a part of the
University of Buffalo gets its first Indo-American President
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Gopinath, Harvard University economics Professor; Sandeep Chatterjee, SourceTrace Systems Co-Founder; and Saleem Ali, University of Vermont environmental studies Professor. Indians like, Members of Parliament Meenakshi Natarajan and Deepender Singh Hooda; Ocimum Biosolutions Founder and CEO Anuradha Acharya; Sanjay Chandra, Managing Director of real estate firm Unitech; Priya Hiranandani-Vandrevala, Hirco Group Founder and Co-Chairman; Manish Khera, Financial Inclusion Network and Operations CEO; Chetan Maini, Mahindra Reva Deputy Chairman and CTO;
Shaffi Mather, Ambulance Access for All Co-Founder; Ramakarthikeyan Srikrishna, founding Partner and Head, global strategy, sales infrastructure, HCL Technologies; and Bhavin Turakhia, CEO at Web products marketing company Directi, are also part of the list. The 2011 honorees will now be part of a broader forum of 668 Young Global Leaders worldwide. They will participate in World Economic Forums events, including its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, the annual meeting of the New Champions in China, and the forum's regional meetings worldwide.
n a bid to provide advice on implementing best business practices on matters related to federal government management and operation, the President's Management Advisory Board was established by Executive Order on the 19th of April, 2010. The board gives advice with a particular focus on productivity, the application of technology, and customer service. President Barack Obama recently appointed Adobe Systems CEO Shantanu Narayen as a
Shantanu Narayen is now a member of President's Management Advisory

member in this Board. Narayen holds a bachelor's degree in electronics engineering from Osmania University in India and got his MBA from the Haas School of Business of the University of California, Berkeley in 1993. He also holds a master's degree in Computer Science from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. Prior to taking the post of CEO of Adobe he was the President and COO of the company.
American Association of Universities. Chancellor Zimpher has requested the State University of New York Board of Trustees to convene a special meeting in April in Buffalo to formally consider Tripathi's appointment for the post. She also named Tripathi as UB's officer-incharge, effective immediately, with all of the responsibilities and authority of a campus president. Tripathi said It would be my distinct privilege to lead our remarkable university, which is recognized for its tradition of excellence and has an extraordinary future ahead.
Speaking at the occasion, Chancellor Zimpher said, "It is my great pleasure to recommend Dr. Satish Tripathi as the next president of the University at Buffalo. Dr. Tripathi's international reputation as an accomplished researcher and transformative leader in higher education makes him ideally suited for this Satish K. Tripathi post. Public research universities like UB provide access to high quality, affordable education and engage in research that helps build vibrant communities at home and across the globe. Dr. Tripathi will provide outstanding leadership for UB as it carries out this important mission."
Shantanu Narayen
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wo Indian-origin professors are among the four to have been named 2011 MacVicar Faculty Fellows for their outstanding undergraduate teaching, mentoring and educational innovation at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Bishwapriya (Bish) Sanyal of the Department of Urban Studies and Planning; and George Verghese of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science were honored along with Christopher Schuh of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering; and Patrick Winston, of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Bishwapriya Sanyal, who re-
MIT honors Two Indian American professors
ceived his PhD in urban and regional planning from the University of California at Los Angeles, joined the MIT as a faculty in 1984 and served as the head of the Department of Urban Studies and Planning from 1994 to 2002 and chaired the MIT faculty from 2007 to 2009. Sanyal, currently the Ford International Professor of Urban Development and Planning, also directs the SPURS/Hubert Humphrey program at MIT for midcareer professionals. George Verghese is a professor of electrical engineering and has been part of the MIT faculty since 1979. He received his B Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras in
1974; his MS from the State University of New York, Stony Brook in 1975; and his PhD from Stanford University in 1979, all in electrical engineering. It is certainly in the spirit of Margaret MacVicar's commitment to students that we award these prestigious fellowships and recognise the creative efforts of MIT's outstanding teachers. This year's fellows are deeply committed advisors and mentors, they have led important curriculum changes and made significant contributions to programs in student life, MIT Provost L Rafael Reif said during a reception at Gray House.
April 9, 2011 New Delhi
Delhi on April 9th, 2011.
Diamond Sponsors
team at Sao Paulo State University in Brazil claims to have developed a more effective way to use fiber from plants to make a new generation of automotive plastics. The fibers that come from delicate fruits like bananas and pineapples will make the plastic stronger, lighter, and more eco-friendly than plastics in use says team leader Alcides Leao. Some of these nano-cellulose fibers are almost as stiff as Kevlar, which is used to make armor and
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Green Cars from Fruits are in the Making
Platinum Sponsors
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bulletproof vests. Kevlar and other plastics which are made from petroleum are not eco friendly, whereas the nano-cellulose fibers are. The properties of these plastics are incredible. They are light, but very strong, 30 percent lighter and 3-4 times stronger than plastic. We believe that a lot of car parts, including dashboards, bumpers, side panels, will be made of nano-sized fruit fibers in the future. For one thing, they will help reduce the weight of cars and that will improve
fuel economy, says Leao. He added that nano-cellulose reinforced plastics also have mechanical advantages over conventional automotive plastics, which include more resistance to damage from heat, spilled gasoline, water, and oxygen.
SPEAKERS
Expo Sponsor
Ajey Gore, Head of Technology, ThoughtWorks India Tarun Dua, CTO, E2E Networks Vivek Merani, Senior Vice President, Magnon International Ganesh Sahai, Quality Manager & Quality Leader, Adobe Janakiram MSV, Technology Evangelist, Amazon
Exhibitor
April 2011
43112195
Compiled By Hari Anil
SAP Labs India launched a unique and compelling car policy to encourage its employees to Go Green, which will propel the company towards its sustainability vision. In collaboration with Mahindra Reva the company is providing an opportunity for employees to own and operate electric cars at a minimum cost. The offer for the employees include an attractive monthly cash incentive and benefits such as free charging points, reserved parking space and routine maintenance and service. VR Ferose, Managing Director, SAP Labs India and Chetan Maini, Chief of Strategy and Technology, Mahindra Reva Electric Vehicles handed over the first batch of electronic cars to four employees. SAP Labs Green Car Policy is in line with Future Fleet, a global research program initiated by SAP AG to test the use of electric vehicles powered by en-
SAP with its New Car Policy Encourages its Employees to Go Green
ergy generated exclusively from renewable sources. SAP Labs India is aiming to be the largest contributor to this initiative with its lineup of 35 electric cars. We expect this forward-looking policy packed with attractive incentives to provide the initial thrust to our employees to choose electric cars over those powered by fossil fuels. I thank our employees and partners who have taken the first step in our global journey to reduce energy use, says Ferose. We congratulate SAP Labs on implementing a path breaking policy for adoption of emission free cars. SAP Labs has shown the way forward to the corporate sector with their pioneering efforts by including their employees and partners in this initiative, added Maini. As part of the policy Mahindra REVA will extend the warranty and servicing period to 36 months against its standard 24 months.
Xilinx unveiled industrys first Extensible Processing Platform (EPP) the Zynq7000 family in India. Xilinx claims this series will achieve the levels of processing and compute performance required in high-end embedded applications in markets such as video surveillance, automotive driver assistance, factory automation, and many others. Supported by a vast ecosystem of tools and IP providers, the Zynq-7000 family tightly integrates a complete ARM(R) Cortex(TM)-A9 MPCore(TM) processorbased system with 28nm, low-power programmable logic for system architects and embedded software developers to extend, customize, optimize, and differentiate their systems. Each Zynq-7000 EPP device is built with an ARM dual-core Cortex-A9 MPCore processing system with NEON and Double Precision Floating Point engines that is fully integrated and hardwired, and includes L1 and L2 caches, memory controllers, and commonly used peripherals. Our Zynq-7000 family offers designers a comprehensive platform that enables them to create their own customized standard products that scale from very cost- and power-effective solutions based on the capabilities of the Artix-7 FPGA family, to more comprehensive and performance-oriented solutions on the higher end with devices based on the Kintex-7 family, said Vin Ratford, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Marketing and Business Development at Xilinx. Application developers can take advantage of the programmable logics massive parallel processing to handle large amounts of data across a wide range of signal processing applications, as well as extend the features of the processing system by implementing additional peripherals.
Xilinx with Zynq-7000 s Extensible Processing Platform
Zynga Studio-1 sets up in Bangalore

Social game developer Zynga launched their Zynga Studio-1 in Bangalore. This is the largest Zynga Studio outside the U.S. This studio will develop new game mechanics and will focus on innovative game development to create new features. This studio will also engage in full life-cycle game development. Zynga studio is famous around world for its
games such as CitiVille, FarmVille, MafiaWars, YoVille and FishVille. Zinga India will recruit engineers, product managers, game designers, artist, and senior managers to support this expansion program. With the launch of Studio-I, we are expanding our capabilities to leverage the amount of creative talent based in India for new features within Zyngas popular games, says Shan Kadavil, Zyngas India manager. The Studio also plans to double the headcount in India during 2011. We are looking for more people with an entrepreneurial drive combined with engineering and artistic skills to join our excisting and growing teams, says Kadavil. In only one year, India has made exciting advancements in technology that have truly improved efficiency for the entire company, he added.
Thinksoft opens new office in Mumbai

Financial software testing company Thinksoft Global Services opened a new sales office cum delivery centre at Andheri, Mumbai, to expand regional presence and also expand clientele in the financial capital. The company had recently expanded its India infrastructure by adding Delivery centers in Bangalore and Chennai. The office in Mumbai is intended to help them strengthen their regional presence and serve their local clients with greater efficiency. In India, there are mega plans as the BFSI sector in the country is yet to exploit the potential of IT deployment. As a result, IT budgets are only going to increase over the years as many organizations will have to go in for large implementation of information systems. We hope to be prepared to capitalize on these coming opportunities, says A.V.Asvini Kumar, Managing Director, Thinksoft Global Services. The company which is listed in the National and Bombay Stock Exchanges specializes in helping Global Financial sector firms to improve the quality of their applications, software and systems. They help their clients to narrow timelines and reduce software product life cycle costs.
GeForce GTX 550 Ti, New GPU from NVIDIA

NVIDIA launched their new graphics processor unit (GPU) the GeForce GTX 550 Ti. The GTX 550 Ti paired with our 3D Vision technology provides gamers with an amazing low-cost platform that delivers an awesome immersive experience, said Drew Henry, general manager of GeForce GPU business at NVIDIA. As the leader in PC gaming hardware, we are excited about the future of PC gaming and how we can make those experiences as immersive as possible, he added. The GTX 550 Ti is the latest in NVIDIAs Fermi line of consumer GPUs. The company claims that the GTX 550 Ti delivers the fastest performance in its class for DX11 games, compared with the closest competitive product; it is up to 50 percent faster in todays newest DX11 tessellated games, and 38 percent faster in previous-generation DX9 and DX10 games. The GTX 550 Ti is available with most of the add-in card partners, including, ASUS, Gainward, Galaxy, Leadtek, MSI, Palit, Point of View, Sparkle and Zotac.
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The author is Co-Founder, Nexus Venture Partners
VC TALK
By Suvir Sujan
he decade of the internet in India has arrived, approximately 60 80 million Indians use internet, of which 20 million are in social networks like orkut and Facebook, and turns over a huge $ 1 Billion in terms of online transaction. While home broadband is slowly increasing, there is a fair bit of broadband in the office and cybercafs. With wireless broadband hopefully around the corner and the 3G rollout, internet will be pervasive in this country. The country right now is going through gaining critical marks in the internet. Many of the internet applications across content community and commerce which should have been created in the 2000s but were not created because of the dotcom bust are being created now. Web 1.0 is migrating into other areas such as regular e-commerce. People are now coming out with entrepreneur ideas to do what every country in the internet space has gone through, which is basic content for the country, basic commerce for the country and basic community for the country. There is a very strong need for ecommerce across almost any vertical, both on the b2c and b2b spectrum. Travel has proven the propensity of Indians to transact online. Ecommerce players that will control the
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last mile customer experience like warehousing, logistics and payments will win. We are still trying to figure out what the trends are. But one future trend for sure will be finding ways to socialize the mobile phone which actually hadnt happened yet. Now there is no need for vernacular communities in the country as all the users of Facebook and orkut are English speakers, but when the socialization of mobile internet happens, since mobile penetration in India is much higher, then vernacular communities will make a big difference. It is very early for vernacular communities now, but I do expect in the next 24 months there will be some critical mass in this area and entrepreneurs will come out with plans for the community area. There are also two global trends that are coming to India; mobility and video. Despite of bandwidth problems and low broadband penetration YouTube remains to be among the top sites in India. I think all kinds of applications in video and mobility will take off in this fashion. We have already invested in a company called Vdopia, which is basically a video adds network that monetizes video streams across mobile and the internet and we are looking for further investments in the video and mobility area.
The biggest challenge that an Internet company might face in India will be competition. The barrier for entry into the internet space in India is very low presently and as a result so many entrepreneurs coming up with internet ideas. To survive this you need to have a lasting power and staying power and the only way you can get this is by raising a substantial capital. If you have an idea launching it quickly is very important, but make sure you have enough capital to back you because it might take over a year to figure out the business model and may be even longer, still he luxury of waiting is absent because the competition would come an eat into your margins. So the challenges are which companies can attract capital investors to finance their business and then figure out their business model over time. Out of, may be, a 1000 entrepreneurs with internet startup ideas about half a dozen to a dozen are getting VC funding every quarter. The key is to convince the investor that you can execute this idea the best. When facing an investor the focus should be on the team and it has to go beyond just having an engineer on your team. Talk about who you got and why, figure out what your go to market strategy is and why you will succeed in this cut throat internet environment where there can be 10,000 other players. Then the second part is you have to start thinking big. You cannot go to an investor and say I am going to do something that will be a small business in five years. The ability to think big is important because venture capital and angel investor guys would go on taking the risk early and invest in a company that has huge potential to grow big. Think about how big you can make your company and target huge markets. Convince the investors that this company can become very large and this is the right team to back it. These are the two main questions we always ask ourselves. My advice to entrepreneurs is that there is no better time to start an internet company in India than now!
ccording to Gartner, global IT Service spending in 2010 was approximately $800 billion but there seem to be very few, if any, PE / VC firms that invest into IT Service providers. The focus of any PE / VC company is to ensure a huge upside for its investors and the only way to ensure the same is to invest into an IT product company that would become the next blockbuster product. The tremendous success of a winning product ensures that there is a huge non-linear / exponential growth to both the top-line and bottom-line, critical to driving huge valuations. IT Service providers are very dependent on strong hiring and training engine to drive the growth of the company, as the revenue growth is tightly coupled to the staff strength. Acquiring & retaining quality staff is a huge challenge that most of the IT majors have been trying to overcome. This lends unpredictability to the growth of the service provider - a major deterrent to obtaining investments from PE / VC firms. Other important factors that drive valuations are differentiated service line, offshore and onshore mix, growth model, and more. With global enterprises looking to reduce the Total Cost of Ownership of their IT assets, they are seeking alternatives to existing IT strategies. As a result, we are seeing an in-
The author is Managing Partner, Basil Growth Fund
VC TALK
By Rajeev Srivastava
Emerging Trend Potential for IT Service Providers to Obtain PE / VC Funding

creasing interest in adoption of SaaS, Cloud Computing and Open Source technologies that are likely to increase the role of the IT Service providers. Gartner, in their report, Gartner Predicts 2011, highlighted that by 2015, tools and automation will eliminate 25 percent of labour hours associated with IT services. Clearly, the successful IT Service providers of tomorrow would be the ones that provide value to their clients using a mix of pure play services with accelerators that reduce the time to adopt / deploy new solutions. Another challenge for small and mid-sized IT Service providers is the plateau effect. Very few IT Services companies have been able to cross the chasm to becoming a great big provider of niche services. The challenges faced by the promoters vary across: lack of professional management, constant worry on working capital, lack of access to a group of advisors who could be the sounding board with skin in the game geographical spread size of company to provide confidence to major enterprises to entrust key projects We, at Basil, see a tremendous potential in providing growth capital to IT Service providers that have a very focussed and niche offering with a proven business model that has a potential to scale. Our experience with this model has convinced us that gone are the days when one could create huge organisations providing generic IT Services (this would have been relevant in the 80s and 90s). The need of the hour for CIOs is a partner that is best fit and solves a very specific problem for them someone who they could trust completely to solve the problem at the earliest, as opposed to eventually. Open Source, Cloud & RIM, Identity & Access Management, Enterprise Mobility, Integrated Customer Interaction Management are some of the niche areas where we see tremendous opportunity for IT Service providers to compete on a level-playing field with the IT majors. Our advice to promoters seeking investment would be to ensure you have a differentiated, niche offering with accelerators to provide value to your clients. Prior to aligning with a PE / VC, ensure you interact with the partners in the fund and their past investments to understand their valueadd across Strategy, Sales & Marketing, Finance & Administration and HR & Recruitment.
The Smart Techie
Rajeev Srivastava
April 2011
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April 2011
Compiled by ST Team
-commerce firm Myntra.com raised `62.3 crore in its second round of funding led by Tiger Global. Its existing investors IDG Ventures and IndoUS Venture Partners also participated in this round of funding. This round brought the total funding raised by Myntra to `84.6 crore. The funding will be used to invest in technology, logistics, supply chain and marketing. Following consumer demand for more items, Myntra is in the process of repositioning itself as a lifestyle portal. Customers have been asking for new things to purchase. Personalization is a niche market and we decided we need to go mainstream, says Mukesh Bansal, Co-founder & CEO, Myntra. We have been growThe Smart Techie
Myntra.com raises `62 Crore in Series B Funding
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ing very fast.Last financial year, we grew 200 percent and this year we are targeting a 3x growth. In the next three years, we want to be a $100 million company, he added. It will continue to offer personalization to users, but the priority will be on lifestyle and casual fashion brands such as Lee, Nike and Reebok. The cricket world cup season proved to be a blessing to Myntra, with over 50 percent of the average 1,000 transactions it is registering per day being sportswear. Founded in 2007 by IITians - Mukesh Bansal, Ashutosh Lawania and Vineet Saxena, Myntra claims to have 500,000 registered users and a reach of 9,000 cities and towns in India. It also ships to 40 countries globally.
12 Techno Services, a Hyderabad based, education service provider, raised `25 crore from Sequoia Capital in its second round of funding. The funds will be utilized to bring 25 schools in Andhra Pradesh. Venkatnarayana Venkatnarayana, Managing Director, K 12 Techno Services says With the `25 crore, we expect to add 25-30 more schools across the Andhra Pradesh in 2011-12, primarily to have computer and language labs, Abacus Mathematics facilities and the like. K-12 Techno Services is a school management company which manages over 70 affordable English-medium schools run by 15 different trusts under the Gowtham Model School brand. It also runs an International school brand the Orchids. The companys services include curriculum development, infrastructure development, pre-school management, teacher training, and marketing solutions to educational trusts, they have also partnered with CfBT UK and Brilliant Tutorials for spoken English and IIT training. Last year Sequoia Capital along with Song Investment, funded the first round of `70 crore in K12. Following the first round, Sequoias KP Balaraj and Ravishankar GV and Song Advisors Vishal Vasishth joined the board of K12 Techno.
K12 Techno Service Raises `25 Crore Funding
BankBazar.com Raises `27 crore in Series A

ankBazaar.com, an online provider of customized rate quotes on loans and insurance products, raised `26.7 crore in a Series A round lead by Walden International. The company which is targeting the growing Indian Internet savvy consumers is planning to use this fund to increase their offerings and to improve their customer reach. We will also leverage this investment to grow our world class team of financial services and technology talent. The opportunity to fundamentally shape financial services delivery in India lies ahead of us and we will bring on board the best talent globally to drive this change, says Adhil Shetty, CEO, BankBazaar.com. BankBazaar, while operating in the $1 billion market, has partnered with banks like HDFC, Axis Bank, Standard Chartered, Deutsche Bank, ING, Kotak Mahindra, and ICICI Bank to offer real time interest rate quotes and approvals on loans. Competition operates on a lead referral model which involves intrusive calling from call centers to consumers cell phones to sell loans. BankBazaar offers real time integration and rate quotes in a non intrusive process, adds Shetty while talking about the competition.
Adhil Shetty
April 16 MUMBAI
Gold Sponsors
Speakers John Soliveres

Managing Director and Co-founder, Quick Report Software
Naveen Prabhu
IT solutions Manager, Tiara Consulting Services
Silver Sponsor
Yogesh Bhatt
Principal Technology Architect, Infosys
April 2011
43112195
COVER STORY
Two Decades of Securing Enterpises

e are in an era where the amount of data being churned out is increasing multifold in corporate environment, thanks to undisputed connectivity of social networks and mobility devices like smartphones and tablets. The very structure of work environment is undergoing rapid change with workforces going mobile and accessing corporate network from remote locations with VPN and other devices. As these changes take place, hackers are also redesigning their tactics to target these networks. Today phishing and spam continues to increase on social/corporate networks as users migrate large portions of their Internet activity such as e-mail to these properties. Moreover in this era of mobile workforce, while it is of necessity that mobility devices be given access to companys network, it is quiet a challenge to monitor every device that connects to the network and what information transacts. More than 12 banks had been phished in the past few years in India including ICICI and Bank of India. This is really a matter of concern. And thats why security solutions enjoy maximum priority in the IT investments of companies. According to Gartner, the total size of the security market is worth Rs.650 crore and capitalization has been only Rs.300 crore. And this is the opportunity we want to tap in, says Govind Ramamurthy, CEO and Managing Director of MicroWorld Technologies. Thus the company finds itself in a sweet spot by being a prominent player in advanced security solution specializing in AntiVirus, AntiSpam, Content Security and Network Intrusion Prevention solutions. Founded in 1993, Mumbai headquartered Microworld, in the last decades has grown leaps and bounds, thwarted the competition and sealed its position in the antivirus front nationally as well as internationally. With its prime product
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Micro World
By Vimali Swamy
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Securing the Individuals, Enterprises and SMBs alike Unlike the IT industry, the awareness for need of network security has been comparatively lower in SMEs/SMBs. While most large enterprises have embraced IT security as a part of the corporate culture, many small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) have been as unguarded as small-town residents who keep their doors and windows unlocked. Similar was the case with Crompton Greaves, a pioneer in the management and application of electrical energy with a diverse portfolio of products for both industrial and consumer segment. To meet high quality standards and to ensure customers receive the best in class, the company had been aggressively investing in
eScan, the company has reached out to not only large enterprises but also SMBs and individuals across Tier 1, 2, and 3 cities.
R&D, product certifications, product quality, productivity enhancement and operational excellence. For long it did not see the need for a strong security solution but with the increasing rise of threats /malware, there came a dire need of having a highly secure network. The need to secure all endpoints and maintain logs on files accessed/transferred to USB based devices was of utmost importance as information breach was not an option. Moreover, with the increasing number of machines, administrators needed a visual description that would help analyze the deployment status and protection status of all PCs within the network. In addition, installation had to be done without a break in workflow and without disrupting business continuity. It required a security solution that not only provided end to end secured network but also provided faster scan speeds, better detection rates of new generation malware along with effective re-
April 2011
moval of known/unknown malware. From the myriad of products flooding the market, Crompton Greaves decided to deploy the corporate version of eScan. It was a perfect match as eScan used whitelisting and cache technologies that enabled faster scans and did not impact the performance of the managed clients apart providing from end to end security. eScan implements a web based console that allowed administrators to securely login to the eScan management console from anywhere within the network using a browser. Using this newly implemented feature administrators can deploy and manage endpoints at remote locations; eliminating the need to physically attend individual machines. To further enhance client side deployment, eScan Web Console features a Client download link. This allows administrators to deploy and setup the client directly from the web console, ruling out the need to carry the installation file. In addition to this, the client setup file comes embedded with the server IP address, eliminating the need to manually enter the IP address of the server during client installation. Furthermore, client issues could now be resolved in a matter of minutes as administrators could now remotely connect to the desired machine and troubleshoot. The automatic reporting feature helps administrators to generate a more detailed report of all managed computers within the network. In addition, the necessary reports can be mailed as and when they were generated, allowing network administrators to review only machines that are of importance. Furthermore, the implementation of the dashboard allowed administrators to view the deployment and protection status of all machines managed by the eScan Management Console. Using the dashboard, network administrators can not only view the overall status of the clients but also view the group they were currently assigned to. This not only allows network audits to be carried out with ease but also
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helps in deploying additional eScan clients when needed. Furthermore, the default settings of the Antivirus and Endpoint security module are sufficient enough to keep all managed machines safe and secure from malware. Having said that, with endpoint security (EPS) enabled and by implementing the necessary policies, administrators can block applications from running and also put a curb on data theft by restricting usage of external drive. In addition EPS also maintains a log on all files that were modified and transferred to otherwise whitelisted drives. Apart from the comprehensive next generation security, eScan also allows administrators to quickly secure and deploy machines on the network. With the implementation of the dashboard network administrators can review the overall status of all connected machines. In addition to gaining insight into application usage of clients, administrators can easily set policies to specific clients with ease. Having deployed eScan for five years now, Shirish Pai, Senior Manager (IT), Crompton Greaves, is extremely pleased with the products performance
and stability. We have been satisfied with eScan as a security solution in Crompton Greaves Ltd. It has been installed for more than 5 years and has worked flawlessly. The software has evolved with time and various new features have been added to tackle new threats in the wild. A special mention about the support team they were quick and efficient to resolve the initial issues as well as the small teething issues with eScan. They are proactive and even go off the track to provide solutions for any security related issues, he says. The Innovation The core difference between MicroWorld and other companies in the segment is the innovation it brings with in its approach at securing the network. MicroWorld Winsock Layer (MWL) Technology developed by MicroWorld is an innovative technology which can work between the Winsock Layer and application layer. MWL allows MicroWorld products to stop unsafe content at the transport layer itself, before it enters the application layer, and thus protects Information Systems effectively. MicroWorld is the sole company to have
developed MailScan for more than 32 different types of mail servers and is available on both Linux and Windows platforms. It also developed customized solutions for different kinds of mail servers. For tackling Spam and Phishing, MicroWorld employs a unique technology named Non Intrusive Learning Patterns (NILP). This adaptive mechanism can analyze each email according to the Behavioral Patterns of the user and can take an informed decision there after, Rammurthy explicates. Today the products from MicroWorld have passed several rigorous tests conducted by reputed, and independent evaluators of the security industry. Recently, the company has released a new version of MailScan range of AntiVirus, Anti-Spam and Content Security solution for Mail Servers MailScan 6.1 and eScan Version 11 for corporate use. Employing an array of intelligent filters and equipped with artificial intelligence based NILP technology, the product offers protection against Virus, Spam and Phishing mails along with comprehensive content Security, claims the company. At a time when more and more mission critical operations are fast moving on to web based models and emails becoming the lifeline of businesses, comprehensive protection for Enterprises becomes the key to Business Continuity and Operational Stability, says Ramamurthy. The company is well on the track to consistently deliver Security Solutions that one can rely on, by continuously improvising and innovating its Technology and Solutions. You always go the extra mile and no matter how it seems, I greatly appreciate youNeedless to mention, this is what most of the customers say on MicroWorlds products. Securing its footprint globally When the company started, the Indian antivirus industry especially the SMB segment was not as evolved as it is today. Every assembler or every small system integrator (SI) was selling hardware with
While most large enterprises have embraced IT security as a part of the corporate culture, most SMEs have been as unguarded as small-town residents who keep their doors and windows unlocked.
free antivirus. So, clients were not ready to pay for antivirus. But the company understood that the scenario internationally was completely different. This instigated it to focus on the international market. The company went ahead and started its operations in the US and since then has subsequently expanded its footprints in Germany, Malaysia and South Africa, penetrating the world market. Today, it has its presence in more than 90 countries and the software is available in more than 16 languages. Thought the company was not very aggressive on the domestic market, since last five years, there has been tremendous activity. Today with the increased awareness of IT across all sectors, India has become a prime market. People have started using Internet to a large extent. With Internet threats creeping in, people have realized the importance of antivirus and security. Thus, we have started building up the channel and channel confidence and today have large team focusing here, Rammurthy explains. He feels that the companys biggest strength nationally and internationally is the technology, followed by its ability to customize product as per the market needs. It is essentially focused on partner-driven sales, emphasizing increasing its engagement with channel partners and resellers. The company recently rolled out 26-city road show to cover all the major towns of India, including metros, A-class and few B-class towns.
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What is next? MicroWorld as an ISV (Independent Software Vendor) is part of the partner programme of major software and hardware giants, such as Microsoft, Intel, IBM Corporation, Citrix, Suse Linux and Red Hat, amongst others. It works in tandem with them to ensure that MicroWorlds products provide comprehensive protection to all systems running these platforms and solutions. The company also has a range of OEM and customized Information Security solutions for companies interested in licensing its technologies. There are three types of OEM opportunities available for companies interested in becoming MicroWorlds OEM partners Re-Branding, Co-Branding and Bundling. Some of the OEM partners include Hardware Manufacturers, Software Developers, UTM Vendors, Networking Vendors, Email Gateway and Proxy Server Manufacturers, Distributors and ISPs. Continuing with its legacy of innovating and tapping potential market and opportunities, MicroWorld is currently in the phase of launching several new products over the next three months. For corporate and SMBs, it recently launched eScan version 11 which has enhanced features and is extremely user friendly. The company also introduced eScan remote support for customers through which it can remotely connect to the customers computer and provide support immediately. The company will shortly launch the eScan version for mobile phones, Mac systems and other Android-based devices. Smartphone is the next big thing in corporate environment and we hope to tap this opportunity immensely. Followed by Android, we will launch products for Blackberry and other OS, says Rammurthy. Today, 300 people strong and a vast footprint across all segments, the way the company is accelerating it hopes to cross the Rs.100 crore mark soon. With its consistent growth over the years as a testimonial, this target does not seem farfetched to achieve.
The Smart Techie
April 2011
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April 2011
The author is CEO, Silvan Innovations Lab
TECHNOLOGY
By M.Girikrishna
roadmap for ip Based surveillance systems in india
T
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he terrorist attacks of 26/11 and beyond have heightened the security concerns of the country and also highlighted the limitations of analog CCTV based surveillance systems which are very prevalent in India. The surveillance systems deployed currently are not yet capable of autonomous analysis of complex events. Today, the video feeds from millions of surveillance cameras are just recorded to facilitate post-event forensic analysis. Such a passive system cannot help with crime or terror prevention, accident and mitigation which require real-time event recognition. Following all this, an urgent need
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has been felt to move away from traditional systems and towards digital IP based surveillance systems as they are expected to provide the ability to respond to events as they occur and also enable remote monitoring even as the affected areas remain inaccessible. Typically, CCTV systems are deployed over a number of remote locations and are monitored by security personnel at a central location. In such systems images from multiple cameras are streamed to a video monitor that can be viewed by a security person. As the number of cameras increase, the potential for the security personnel to miss a significant event increases. In IP based surveillance systems, the
effectiveness of such a system is determined by the availability of the network as well as the bandwidth available with the network. The fact that the video is streamed over the network can result in delayed response times to events that require immediate action. The number of failure points in such a system can also lead to an ineffective surveillance system in conditions where bandwidth is limited and power availability is an issue. There is a possibility that critical video information is lost and important events are missed whenever there is network or power failure, in a centralized surveillance system. The key problems in deploying an effective IP based Video Surveillance
system in a developing market like India is the availability of 24/7 power as well as network bandwidth and the need of highly technically skilled support staff. It would be desirable to provide a distributed video surveillance system that has cameras with the ability to address situations involving lack of power and limited or no network. In particular in the case of power failure, cameras need to have a local independent power source that will ensure that the camera continues to function. In the case of network failure, the camera should have the ability to store the video images locally and the video content can be synchronized with the central location on resumption of normal services. In the case of network bandwidth being a limitation, the camera should have the ability to decide the resolutions and the frame rate for streaming the video over the network. To improve response time to specific triggers or events, the camera should have the ability to analyse the video, detect specific events and trigger alarms. This system ensures that the camera is the only point of failure and the other cameras in the system can takeover if one camera fails. As a result such a surveillance system becomes highly available and reliable. Cameras will need to have both battery backup as well as local storage to provide for an eventuality where either power and/or network are unavailable or limited. To support the effective utilization of the battery backup and local storage, algorithms will need to be implemented to support multiple situations. While providing battery backup on the camera is an obvious solution for enabling cameras to continue to work in the absence of AC power, power utilization and optimization will be required to extend the charge on the battery so that the cameras continue to function even if power remains unavailable for extended periods.
Video analytics addresses infrastructure challenges by enabling contentaware storage and routing. The software is the equivalent of having a tireless, unblinking person watch each camera, detect relevant events, and make decisions on what events to store and when to stream video. An analytics-enabled Video Management Software (VMS) addresses the three big scalability challenges of enterprise video deployments human resources, storage and bandwidth more effectively and cost-efficiently than a system without this capability. In view of its importance, it is an urgent necessity to come up with video analytics that can autonomously track, monitor, analyse and verify real-life situations in order to alert in the event of any abnormal activity without any delay. As the importance of autonomous large scale surveillance system continues to rise, especially in homeland security, video analytics is bound to take a pivotal role. The success of autonomous surveillance system solely depends on video analytics, which is the brain behind cameras. Embedded video analytics provides a win-win situation, by enabling security personnel to prevent crime instead of investigating it after the incident. A distributed video surveillance solution greatly reduces operational cost while increasing the availability, reliability, scalabaility and performance of the system while allowing centralized administration and monitoring. This technology can transform the way enterprises plan and deploy IP video surveillance systems. Systems with these features can be deployed in public places like Airports, Railway Stations and Bus Stations as well as large campuses including places like IT Parks to prevent as well as limit the impact of terrorist attacks. Video surveillance on the digital IP-based network environment is highly dependent on availability of network bandwidth. This constraint
needs to be addressed by relocating the intelligence from the remote analytics center to embedded intelligence in the camera thus providing alerts in real time with high levels of functionality with significantly lower costs and bandwidth requirements. The device at the edge should have analytics that can detect events in real-time and stream video over the network for secondary processing on the server side. The video management software (VMS) in the system will have the intelligence to make decisions with respect to usage of storage and generation of alerts and alarms. This article clearly demonstrates that there are specific challenges that need to be addressed to enable a seamless and smooth transition from analog systems to digital IP based surveillance systems in the Indian market. Various reports suggest that the total India surveillance market is around Rs 2500 Crores, growing at the rate of 2530% per year. Of that the IP camera market is Rs 300 Crores and the CCTV camera market is Rs 1500 Crores. The market share of IP-camera market is steadily increasing, and by 2012, IP-camera volume is projected to take over CCTV (analog) camera volume. The Indian market is mostly served by imported cameras. The video analytics has not yet picked up the demand in commercial surveillance market, but there are specific needs in Defence and Traffic management. The market is currently catered by numerous small service providers/dealers who do the system integration and installations of mostly imported cameras. Recent security issues, government regulations, and starting of surveillance as service business by few service providers will create a bigger discontinuity in the market. Clearly an opportunity exists to create products for the Indian market that meets this need but also to grow the market at a rate that is much faster than projected.
The Smart Techie
April 2011
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April 2011
The author is Vice President, India Product Operations, Symantec
TECHNOLOGY
By Shantanu Ghosh
overcome New security Challenges with an information-Centric approach

ost of us who watch action movies where a skilled hacker holds an organization or even a country to ransom will dismiss it as fiction. However, the case of Stuxnet the first computer worm to affect realworld infrastructure, easily reads like the latest blockbuster. This is the first publicly widespread threat that has shown a possibility of gaining control of industrial systems used in critical infrastructure and placing it in the wrong hands. Stuxnet confirms that cybercriminals are targeting four key areas of weakness which puts enterprise environments at risk: poorly enforced IT policies, poorly protected information, poorly managed systems and poorly protected infrastructure. It also signals a shift in the cyber security landscape attackers who were earlier motivated by fame or financial gain, are today aiming to sabotage real-world systems. At the same time, Indian enterprises also need to secure themselves against the growing insider threat to data. While malicious insider data breaches by disgruntled employees are increasing, the well-meaning insider threat to data has also grown. Symantecs State of Enterprise Security Survey 2010 revealed that 54 percent of Indian enterprises feel external attacks are growing, 42 percent feel internal
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malicious attacks are growing and 52 percent feel internal unintentional instances of data loss are rising. The survey also revealed that 23 percent of Indian enterprises experienced data breaches due to malicious insiders and 31 percent experienced data breaches to insider negligence. Data loss by well-meaning insiders occurs due to employees accidentally disclosing confidential data, causing internal data spills, trying to undermine security, falling victim to social engineering tactics, or bypassing key company processes. All these security risks are aggravated by the explosion of mobile devices in the enterprise. According to industry reports over 80 percent of Fortune 100 companies are using or testing a tablet, an increase from 65
percent three months ago. Symantecs Enterprise Security Survey 2010 also revealed that 73 percent of Indian enterprises are witnessing a growth in smartphones connecting to the network. The increasing mobility of the workforce and the resulting heterogeneity of enterprise environments mean information today is more dispersed, and much more difficult to manage and secure. This is aggravated by the fact that the volume of digital information that is being generated is also exploding. Information explosion in enterprises today is particularly in the form of unstructured data for example, spreadsheets, documents and emails that does not reside in traditional databases. IDC predicts the growth of unstructured data to con-
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tinue at over 60 percent per year, and in many organizations it accounts for more than 80 percent of all data. This deluge of unstructured data is much more difficult to manage and secure. An organizations most valuable information its intellectual property is often buried within a growing volume of unstructured documents, many of which are not sensitive. Unstructured data stores are also typically less secure than other data repositories, making them more vulnerable to data loss from both internal and external threats. Compounded by trends such as cloud computing and virtualization, enterprises today are struggling to manage the mounting volumes of information stored and accessed across multiple devices and locations and facing attack from outside and within. In fact, today the infrastructure is becoming almost irrelevant it is people and information that are driving technology. From intellectual property to customer records, data has become critical to the bottom-line. Additionally, as users access confidential data stored on the cloud through a variety of devices, it is becoming more important for enterprises to trust that the applications, users and devices connecting to the network are authentic. Organizations are struggling with multiple point solutions to manage and secure their data and need technology to work together to solve problems. Apart from the pressing need to secure information, enterprises are also facing regulatory pressures. While compliance, certification and adherence to laws, standards and business practices were earlier a requirement only for a few Indian enterprises that had global operations, the scenario is changing. Security and compliance is starting to be seen as a business investment as regulations are being proposed for Indian enterprises across various sectors. From new regulations by the RBI governing the way tech-
nology is used in the financial sector, to directives for telcos from the Intelligence Bureau, global Indian enterprises today need to comply with a mix of local and international regulations. A recent Symantec survey found that Indian enterprises are, on an average, exploring 19 standards and frameworks, eight of which they currently comply with. In such a scenario, businesses need to manage risk proactively, protecting not just the infrastructure that data resides in, but also the information itself. The dynamic nature of threats from a multitude of sources now means organizations have to effectively reduce risk and ensure data is protected at all times, no matter where it is used or stored. Moving forward, enterprises require a security strategy that is riskbased and policy-driven, informationcentric and operationalized across a well-managed infrastructure. This means that enterprises need to: Develop and enforce IT policies and automate compliance processes. Protect information proactively by taking an information-centric approach. Taking a content-aware
The increasing mobility of the workforce and the resulting heterogeneity of enterprise environments mean information today is more dispersed, and much more difficult to manage and secure
approach to protecting information is key in knowing who owns the information, where sensitive information resides, who has access, and how to protect it as it is coming in or leaving your organization. Utilize encryption to secure sensitive information and prohibit access by unauthorized individuals. Authenticate identities by leveraging solutions that allow businesses to ensure only authorized personnel have access to systems. Authentication also enables organizations to protect public facing assets by ensuring the true identity of a device, system, or application is authentic. This prevents individuals from accidentally disclosing credentials to an attack site and from attaching unauthorized devices to the infrastructure. Manage systems by implementing secure operating environments, distributing and enforcing patch levels, automating processes to streamline efficiency, and monitoring and reporting on system status. Protect the infrastructure by securing endpoints, messaging and Web environments. Organizations also need the visibility and security intelligence to respond to threats rapidly. Ensure 24x7 availability. Organizations should implement testing methods that are non-disruptive and they can reduce complexity by automating failover. Develop an information management strategy that includes an information retention plan and policies. Organizations need to stop using backup for archiving and legal holds, implement deduplication everywhere to free resources, use a full-featured archive system and deploy data loss prevention technologies.
The Smart Techie
April 2011
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April 2011
The author is Director Sales, McAfee India
TECHNOLOGY
By Ambarish Deshpande
say hello to the new Consumerized iT workplace
he rapid proliferation of smart devices such as smart phones, PDAs and laptops is more than just a marketing and technological success story. These compact multi-functional devices have been responsible for changing the economic and social fabric globally by being an integral part of our daily environment. At the core of this phenomenon is the fact that these powerful devices can serve as a single point gateway to accessing information, making transactions, seeking products, downloading entertainment anywhere and anytime. However the ubiquity of smart devices is also posing as a major challenge confronting organisations today. Having grown up in the age of iphones and iPads, todays Generation Y comprising of technologically savvy, mobile, job hopping professionals is increasingly insisting on using their own devices at their workplaces to ensure uninterrupted access to company information and
faster turnaround and productivity to meet the imperatives of todays competitive workplaces. But imagine a scenario when an employee uses three to four smart devices to juggle between various applications such as social networking sites, consumer applications for banking or travelling and business applications such as CRM, databases etc; using all these devices interchangeably for business and personal activities. This certainly implies opening a Pandoras box of issues associated with unauthorised access and subsequent data thefts! This phenomenon that is redefining the functioning of workplaces is referred as Consumerization of IT and is touted to be one of the most radical and irreversible transformations in Enterprise IT. Consumerization: To adopt or not to adopt According to a McAfee survey conducted in 2010 with global IT decision-
makers, administrators, consultants, and security analysts, the key drivers of Consumerization of IT are increased employee productivity (58 percent) and greater flexibility and turnaround time (52 percent). However the security risks pertaining to this trend have made many organizations firmly oppose it by restricting the introduction of personal devices into the workplace and attempting to lock down data. This however could be deemed as an escapist approach. Very few companies realise that productivity benefits aside, the willingness to embrace Consumerization of IT presents an opportunity for companies to save their capital expenses by leveraging their employees pre-existing investments in such powerful devices. The way to make this trend work in your favour is by understanding the needs of an organisation and building a suitable strategy that incorporates this new future of work. So how can organisations leverage the productivity and cost benefits of this trend without being affected by its security challenges? McAfee recommends the following strategies for organisations to lift their veil of uncertainty around this trend and leverage it as a productivity catalyst: Deploy host and network anti-malware to reduce infections and protect company systems. Use a firewall and network intrusion prevention system
(IPS) to control traffic to and from key assets. Ensure VPNs for secure connections to corporate networks. Enforce remote encryption and wiping of information and applications for company owned smart phones and other mobile devices to protect data in case the device is lost or stolen. It is however important to note that this approach is difficult to use with users personal mobile phones and computers. Organisations need to use network access control (NAC) to ensure that employee-owned devices have installed proper security tools and are compliant with IT standards prior to accessing the network. NAC can control guest devices and other unmanaged endpoints and ensure access to resources or infect your network. By deploying virtual desktops, employees can access company appli-
cations and data on personal devices, but the application infrastructure and data remain on corporate servers behind the firewall. Implement encryption for information at rest and in motion. If a remote device falls into the wrong hands or a transmission is intercepted, encrypted information is unusable. Keep in mind that while this strategy is practical for company-owned laptops and employeeowned smart phones, its difficult to enforce data encryption on employee-owned PCs and Macs. Consider a relatively new development called PC on a stick, in which thumb drives (USB drives) or memory cards store a customized interface or launch pad, user-selected applications, and data. Users can carry this computer-ona-stick to any public or shared machine, plug it in, and begin working
with familiar tools and personalized settings. When the drive or card is removed, there is no trace of the users work left on the PC. Deploy integrated endpoint security with a centralized management console to ease the effort required by security administrators and enable them to easily manage all endpoints in the system. An integrated, centralized strategy is always more efficient and effective from a cost and performance standpoint than deploying a series of point solutions. Like most technologies, Consumerization of IT is a mixed blessing with some incredible advantages bundled with unforeseen risks. But with Information Technology having undergone a paradigm shift in the last decade, CIOs will need to objectively consider such pathbreaking approaches to technologies to trigger greater productivity and innovation in organisations.
Security Conference
siliconindia
April 9, 2011 Mumbai
Speakers
Abhilash Sonwane
Sr. Vice President, Cyberoam
K. K. Mookhey
Principal Consultant, Network Intelligence
Cybercrime. Malware incidents. Data breaches. Compliance legislation. Todays changing security landscape means you cant leave anything to chance.. And new threats have kept you on your toes. What are some more of the unsettling things that need to be addressed? And how do you survive and advance in your career? Siliconindia's Security Conference 2011 will address the challenges and issues at the forefront of enterprise security. You'll get the answers to these and many more questions: What must I know about the evolving technologies of information security and related disciplines? How do I become a more e ective security professional? How do I technically secure applications, or handle security for my industry speci c requirements? What is my career path within or outside my current company/agency? How can I communicate my value to the business more e ectively? The conference brings together practitioners, professionals, and others interested in the latest advances in the security of computer systems and networks. Security Conference 2011 provides an excellent opportunity to meet and network with delegates in a professional learning environment whilst demonstrating your commitment to community and the industry.
Jaimon Jose
Distinguished Engineer, Novell
Parag Deshpande
Principal eGRC Consultant, RSA
Vijay Mahajani
Sr. Manager, Wipro Consulting Services
Vaidyanathan Iyer
Sales Leader, IBM Security Solutions
Tejas Lagad
Director of Product Management Nexus Technology
Shreeraj Shah
Director, Blueinfy
Cloud Security Partner
Internet Security Partner
Kartik Shinde
Senior Manager - Advisory Services Ernst & Young
The Smart Techie
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April 2011
Kamal Sharma
Technical Sales Consultant - India & SAARC, Trend Micro India
Register now at http://www.siliconindia.com/events For speaking and sponsorship opportunities write to events@siliconindia.com or call 080-43112195
The author is CTO, we45 Solutions India
TECHNOLOGY
By Abhay Bhargav
Cloud Security
Challenges in Securing Enterprise Web 2.0 Applications
eb 2.0 is everywhere. Every organization that wants a web presence today wants a Web 2.0 application and would like to exploit the power of the Cloud. However, the Web 2.0 phenomenon has a serious security flipside. There are myriad ways in which an attacker can compromise Web 2.0 applications, and this has been a marked increase from the traditional websites and web application from the Web 1.0 era. This article focuses on some of the attacks against Web 2.0 and Cloud applications and how organizations have to consider security seriously before they develop/deploy these applications for their critical business requirements.
Web 2.0 applications usually consist of the following technologies HTML5 HTML5 is a revision to the existing HTML 4.01 language, which provides improvements to the language as well as a great deal of features with respect to multimedia and rich content. There are new tags like <video> and <audio> for multimedia content
Web 2.0 Apps A Brief Introduction Web 2.0 has become a phenomenon ever since it was coined in the year 1999. Over time, we have seen web applications being highly interactive and interoperable. Social Networking Sites, Video Sharing Sites, Blogs, Wikis, Hosted Services, Software-as-aService (SaaS), Mashups and so on are some examples of Web 2.0 applications.
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Web Services Web Service is a software component that is made available over a network. Web services allow application developers to utilize services provided by different service providers in order to create integrated web applications or mashup applications, providing high level of interoperability and a greater set of features for their users. Web services can be located with the UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration), which is like a directory service for web services. The services are located and described using the WSDL (Web Services Description Language), which is XML based. Web services are traditionally accessed using the SOAP protocol. However, in recent times the move is towards an API model using the REST (Representational State
AJAX, Flash and RIA Web Applications today are expected to provide a greater user experience than ever before. This is made possible by Rich Internet Application technologies like AJAX and Flash. AJAX is Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, which enables asynchronous communications between the users browser and the web server using the XML-HTTP-Request. AJAX is also used to create mashups of applications where the web application can access different external web services and provide the user with the presentation and content using content from different web services. For instance, a real estate website can use a mashup containing content from Google Maps and its own real estate listing content to draw a map of different properties that are on sale for greater user interaction and flexibility. Flash is another popular Client-Side Technology, which uses Adobe Flash objects to display and interact with the user based on content. Earlier flash was
Transfer) accessed using HTTP Request and response messages with the XMLHTTP-Request with JSON (JavaScript Object Notation).
Web 2.0 Attack Surface Typically most of the attacks that affect traditional websites and web applications still apply to Web 2.0 applications as well. Attackers can inject malicious JavaScript into the applications input and attack other users of the application or even cause a Denial-of-Service of the application. Other injection based attacks like SQL Injection can also be perpetrated, where an attacker can potentially get access to the database using crafted SQL queries in the application input. However, the attack surface is greatly increased in Web 2.0 applications for many reasons. A few of them are: Client Side Business Logic One of the key elements of several Web 2.0 applications is that there is a great deal of application business logic present at the client side as opposed to the server side. This is so, because Web 2.0 applications are supposed to provide quicker results and a higher level of interaction with the user, without having the refresh/load the web page again. However, in Web 2.0, the client (browser) receives a great deal of business logic. Developers often commit the error of sending more data to the client than necessary. For instance, an AJAX application uses the JSON to hold the data in a request and response. The data is present in the JSON request or response in an array format. The client receives the data in JSON format in a response and parses it to be displayed to a user. Several developers do not validate the input sent to the server or validate the response sent by the server to the client, as a result of which an attacker can potential send malicious SQL queries in the JSON request and gain access to sensitive information in the database and per-
only used for games and videos, but today business applications and complicated business logic is also delivered via flash for web applications to provide a superior user experience.
petrate an attack against the database. The attacker can also send malicious scripts in the request over JSON and perpetrate Cross Site Scripting attacks (XSS), which may affect the other users of the application. Flash applications contain a great deal of business logic implementation in modern web 2.0 applications. The attacker can identify the requests made by the flash object in the web application. The attacker can send crafted web requests through the flash objects and if the application does not validate or filter input, can result in XSS and other injection attacks. HTML5 Insecurity The HTML5 provides a great deal of features for Rich Internet applications. The new features of the HTML5 can also be used by the attacker to perpetrate Cross Site Scripting attacks (XSS). The new tags introduced by the HTML5 like <canvas> or <video> can be used by the attacker to inject JavaScript code and perpetrate XSS attacks, where anything from hijacking a users session to. For instance an attacker may inject: <video poster= javascript: document. cookie// This attack may result in the users current session id to be hijacked by the attacker.
the users of the application. This has been seen extensively in attacks perpetrated by third party applications against the users of social networks like facebook and twitter. In many cases standard JavaScript API files used by the application can be called without authentication to provide access to privileged functions in the application. These API files are usually discovered by attackers through a simple process of crawling the target web application.
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Evil API based Attacks Many Web 2.0 apps work based on the API model. This is especially popular with social networks and is gaining a great deal of traction with Business Applications as well. The organization decides to provide its API to external developers to create mashups or promote development of value-added applications that run on top of the organizations application. For instance, Facebook apps are examples of API based applications, provided by Facebooks API. It is usually seen that the API is seldom validated for coding practices. A malicious developer may write an application that uses the API of the host web application to perpetrate attacks against
The Solution Web 2.0 and Cloud Apps The best solution to protect critical Enterprise Web 2.0 and Cloud Applications is to build security into the SDLC and ensure that security is a high priority throughout the development and deployment lifecycle of the application. These applications are built for high interconnectivity, interaction and interoperability with users and other applications; therefore security is a critical priority. The organization must develop a strong practice of incorporating security into the lifecycle for security issues to be nipped at the bud. Organizations must also test these web applications early and often. A variety of tests should be conducted for these applications before they are deployed in the environment. Applications should be subject to white-box testing techniques like code review and analysis at regular stages of development. Furthermore, applications should also be subjected to Vulnerability Assessments and Penetration Testing (where they are attacked from an attackers perspective) where coding flaws and configuration vulnerabilities are identified. Web 2.0 and the Cloud have opened up new avenues for enterprises experience the full power of the web. However, treading carefully with security as a key priority is my advise to enterprises.
The Smart Techie
April 2011
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April 2011
No
100
W
TOP
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
College Name
IIM Bangalore XLRI
Location
Bangalore
Avg Salary
18.51 17.68 16.39 15.928 15.584 14.98 14.74 14.67 14.27
IIM Ahemdabad JBIMS IIM Kolkata FMS Delhi
Jamshedpur Ahemdabad Mumbai Kolkata Delhi Delhi Mumbai Lucknow Indore Delhi
S.P.Jain Inst. Of Mgmt IIM Lucknow IIM Indore IIFT
10
MDI Gurgaon IIM Kozhikode National Inst. Of Industrial Eng. NIRMA MICA XIMB IMI
14.5375
hools Sc A
OF INDI
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
Kozhikode Mumbai
12.171 12.042 11.96 11.7 11.4 11.865
Ahmedabad Ahmedabad Goa Bhubaneswar Anand Delhi
Goa Institute of Mgmt IRMA NMIMS TAPMI K J Somaiya IIT Rorkee ITS Mohan Nagar IIT Chennai BIMM Welingkar ITS Noida LIBA IBA
11.29 10.64 10.12 9.95 9.88 9.46 9.453 8.982 8.81 8.63 8.33
11.178
Before you let this thought precipitate that this is yet another B-School Survey and it will probably deepen your dilemma in short-listing the B-Schools, we would quickly like to tell you why this survey is different and why it make enormous sense going through a complete report. For the first time in India, SiliconIndia has done a survey to high light The most important element of management education i.e. perceived value of B Schools Graduates in the job market post 5 years of their MBA. To be precise, this Report will help MBA aspirants in mapping the colleges based on the salary & career Growth. The report also includes couple of other exciting rankings like Top New Generation B-Schools and zonal rankings of B-Schools with best earning potential Apart from IIMs The survey has been conducted by SiliconIndia independently without any direct inputs from the colleges that have helped in giving unbiased stats. The average salary data have been collated by SiliconIndia by sampling 20,610 management graduates of 2006 batch across India, who participated in the online polling conducted on SiliconIndia from 1st February May, 2011 to 15th March, 2011. We assure you that the salary figures and other stats represented in the report are very close to the reality.
elcome to the second edition of SiliconIndias comprehensive salary and career growth survey of management graduates from TOP 200 B-Schools of India.For the first time in India, SiliconIndia has done a survey to highlight the most important element of management education and i.e. perceived value of B-Schools graduates in the job market post 5 years of theirMBA
Mumbai Manipal Rorkee Mumbai Ghaziabad Chennai Chennai Pune Mumbai Delhi Delhi Noida Chennai
10.025
Great Lakes Inst Of Mgmt
9.0625
Fore School Of Mgmt Lal Bahadur Shastri Inst. Of Mgmt.
8.409 8.283 8.125 8.075 8.03 7.93 7.64 7.32 7.08 7.06 6.95 6.87 6.6 6.55 6.53 6.21 6.18 6.407
Aicar Business School
Bangalore Mumbai Pune Pune Pune Bangalore Gurgaon
Alliance Business School Infinity Business School IMDR IBS SCMHRD
Poona School Of Business
7.673
Fortune Inst of International Business ITM Loyola College XIME
Hyderabad Delhi Mumbai Chennai Noida
7.291
Amity Business School Manipal Inst of Mgmt SIBM Pune IIPM
Bangalore Manipal Pune Bangalore Ghaziabad Delhi
National Inst. Of Magmt. IMT Ghaziabad
TOP 100 B-SCHOOLS OF INDIA

No
51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64
College Name
IFMR Amrita Business School Kirloskar Inst of Mgmt GITAM IPE
Loca on
Chennai Harihar Kolkata Pune Amritapuri Visakhapatnam Hyderabad Mumbai Pune
AvgSalary
6.12 6.075 6.065 6.004 5.94 5.86 5.81 5.71 5.68 5.44 5.4 5.36 5.2 5.512 5.8925
Globsyn Business School Symbiosis Inst Mgmt Studies Banaras Hindu University ISB&M PSG Christ Institute of Mgmt. MET Institute of Management IMS Ghaziabad BIM Tirchy
K.C.College of Management Studies
Varanasi Bangalore Mumbai Tirchy Delhi Delhi
Coimbatore Ghaziabad
65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100
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New Delhi Inst. Of Mgmt. IILM IME
5.205 5.163
Asia Pacific Inst. Of Mgmt
Gurgaon Mumbai Delhi Delhi Pune
5.158 5.147 5.1 5.09 5.07 5.05 5 5
EMPI
Rai Business School
Dr. D.Y. Patil Institute of Management & Research Indira Institute of Management Pune XISS TISS
Mumbai Ranchi
IFIM
Mumbai
BIMT
Bangalore Gurgaon Kolkata Delhi Pune
4.93
IISWBM
4.905 4.711 4.425 4.42 4.4 4.25 4.23 4.11 4 4.216
Apeejay School of Marketing TASMAC NIILM IPEM IFTM Vellore Inst. Of Technology SRM School of Management Jaipuria Institute of Management BIT Ranchi
Vellore Delhi Chennai
Ghaziabad Lucknow Ranchi Jaipur Moradabaad
Jagan Inst. Of Mgmt. Sc.
3.959 3.925 3.91 3.9 3.905 3.775 3.725 3.73 3.7 3.65
Integral Institute Of Advanced Management Bangalore Management Academy Asan Memorial Inst. Of Mgmt Acharya Inst. Mgmt. Sc. EIILM IBMT
Visakhapatnam Bangalore Chennai Kolkata Bangalore Bangalore Delhi
RCM, Bhubaneswar IBMR
Skyline Business School KIIT SOM
Bhubaneswar Bangalore Jaipur
Taxila Business School
Bhubaneswar Bangalore
3.458 3.443 3.2 2.83333
Acharya Inst. Of Technology

April 2011
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Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Location Delhi Delhi Delhi Delhi Delhi Delhi Delhi Ghaziabad Noida Lucknow
TOP B-Schools in North India

College Name FMS Delhi IIM Lucknow IIFT IMI
MDI Gurgaon
ITS Mohan Nagar ITS Noida LBSIM FIIB
Fore School Of Mgmt
placements 2010 see 20 percent hike in salary

TOP B-Schools in East India
Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 College Name XLRI IIM Kolkata XIMB XISS Globsyn Business School IISWBM EIILM Location Kolkata Kolkata Ranchi Ranchi Kolkata Kolkata Jamshedpur Bhubaneswar
Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
TOP B-Schools in West India

College Name JBIMS IIM Ahemdabad S.P.Jain Inst. Of Mgmt IIM Indore National Inst. Of Industrial Eng. Nirma MICA IRMA
Location Mumbai Mumbai Indore
Ahemdabad
Mumbai Ahemdabad Ahmedabad Goa Anand
BIT Ranchi RCM, Bhubaneswar
Goa Institute of Mgmt NMIMS
Bhubaneswar
Mumbai Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
TOP B-Schools in South India

College Name IIM B IIM Kozhikode TAPMI Great Lakes Inst Of Mgmt IIT Chennai LIBA IBA IBS Location Bangalore
Kozhikode Manipal Chennai Chennai Chennai Bangalore Bangalore Bangalore Hyderabad
look at the placements of 2010, however, shows some signs of recovery. Spearheading this recovery, is an average 25 per cent upsurge in average domestic salaries across top rung B schools. For almost all B-schools, 2009 had been a nightmare with gloomy placement scenario. Courtesy, the dipping global economic health, infested by the virus named recession. This years placements are marked by a major shuffle in the sector wise preferences. In a major shift of trends, PSUs which last year saw lions share of graduates opting for it, took a dip this year. 2010 saw the return of Banking and Finance as the major recruiters although the numbers did not match to last years statistics but still they continued to be the ones to catch hold of majority of MBA graduates. Simultaneously, this year saw consulting firms hiring on an increased rate as compared to that of last year. We at siliconindia.com have carefully consolidated the crucial facts and figures from the placement press releases as issued by the top B-schools, and drawn out following major trends this year: A crystal clear upturn in average domestic salary: 2010 comes as a whiff of fresh air to all those concerned about the credit crunch in the Indian market last year. This years placements have
Global blue chip firms pitch in profusely: With the resurgence of global economy, came innumerable offers from international companies like Mckinsey & Co The Boston Consulting Group, Monitor Group, Bain and Company, Booz and Company, AT Kearney and Oliver Wyman, and many more global firms showed faith in Indian brains and flooded them with international stints. This further strengthened the emerging perception of a fast paced economic recovery. PSUs preferences take a nose-dive, Consulting firms surface up: PSUs had witnessed a robust crowd of students at its doorsteps last year but this year the interest in this sector seems to have taken a plunge whereas consulting firms were back with a vengeance this season. Firms like Mckinsey & Co., Ac-
Finance and Banking bounce back as the major recruiters: Finance and banking sector is in vogue again. In spite of this years lower statistics hinting at a slower revival rate, this sector continues to rule by absorbing the majority across the top B schools.
witnessed a significant rise (20 per cent approx.) in the salary offered. The average salary figures, which, although do not compare to the 2008 standard, are significantly higher than true figures of 2009. centure Business Consulting, KPMG, Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Bristlecone, Hewitt, Cognizant Business Consulting, Droege, Gallup Consulting, etc. picking up a sizeable chunk.
Alliance Business School Loyola College
More Pre Placement offers and Lateral Placement offers this time: In what came to be deemed as an impressive prelude to this years final fulfilling placements, students were offered increased offers of pre placement offers and lateral placement offers. Overall, the placements 2010 come as a breather for all that suffocation that had settled in last year, still the signs are yet not as good as 2008. This year, with the industry bouncing back, students of business schools have fresh smiles on their facesplacements are coming back to life.
The Smart Techie
Job profiles given more priority over perks: A very interesting trend that seems to be emerging is that of giving more preference to better and befitting profiles. Profiles offered clearly took precedence over salaries and incentives,
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April 2011
EVENT
By Akanksha Ravindran
iliconindia in keeping with the tradition and core philosophy of creating a platform for experts in the industry to share their learning with other stakeholders, organized the Mobile Application Conference in Mumbai on February 19th. After the phenomenal success of the Mobile Applications Conference in Delhi and Bangalore, this edition of the conference explored the new opportunities that are emerging in the mobile market in 2011 and shed some light on where the industry is headed and how entrepreneurs and developers can take advantage. The event started with a keynote address on Enterprise Mobile Applications by Vinod Gadiyaram, Regional Voice Head, Bharti Airtel followed by a session on Mobile Web Development which was addressed by Mohit Saxena Founder & Vice President, Technology, InMobi. Major shifts are changing the game including open platforms and new entrants. Whats different, what has changed? Is the app craze a fad or will it continue? The panel on Mobile applications explode. Who wins and who loses? discussed about "the ecosystem battle for developers and their consumers" and how it affects every player in the mobile ecosystem from carriers and handset makers to the application developers, themselves. The panelists were Alap Ghosh Head of Sales, Mobango and Hara Prasanna Kar Director Business
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Siliconindia MAC Mumbai divests an insight into

Development , CanvasM. Speaking on challenges of Mobile Content discovery, Ponnapa PG CEOEmerging Markets, mPortal said, India remains a large non-smart phone market and will remain so for the foreseeable future. A sizeable customer base is ready to consume a VAS / App but is very tentative in navigating the maze on their phone. Hence Home screen widgets will play a critical role in the future of content discovery for this large segment. the human race. He exhorted the developers to fulfill an existing need by an application rather than creating an application and then creating a market for it. Probir Roys session carried opportunities in traditional VAS going forward in a 3 G scenario and also that the use of the Mobile for payments and financial transactions wraps around nicely with its current use for communication, information and entertainment. The event then moved on to the VC perspective on opportunities for entrepreneurs in the mobile space. We had VCs like Ishan Gupta General Manager, One97; Karan Mohla Senior Associate, IDG Ventures India; Shailesh Lakhani Vice President, Sequoia Capital; Manoj Gupta Principal, Nexus Venture Partners and Samir Kumar Managing Director, Inventus Capital on the panel. Karan Mohla Senior Associate, IDG Ventures India said, Having the right team is most crucial in any venture. VCs look positively at backing teams with a complementary set of skills, good and upward trending track records, and most importantly a passion. Clarity of vision is critical, especially for the CEO when evaluating the strategic options for the company. It is also very important to know what problem you are solving, what solution you are offering and who your customer is. VCs look to invest in companies which are solving a pain point with a perspective that is neither too narrow or too broad. There are a several emerging opportu-
Indian Mobile Market
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This was the topic of a panel presided by Vijayakumar Radhakrishnan Chief Technology Officer, Dot Com Infoway, Sam Gulve Managing Director , Spice Mobility and Probir Roy Co-Founder, Paymate. The discussion explored the potential of mobile applications, the benefits to consumer and enterprise users, and what it will take to transform a great application into a real company. Sam Gulve started by saying that mobile technology has got most integrated into our lives and has become the Sixth Sensory Organ for the human race. God gave us five sensory organs, and then we gave this additional organ to ourselves. Its almost like a new eye, a new ear, a new tongue that we have got. And when one thinks about an application for this new organ, we should really think about how we can make life easy, fast and efficient for
The Opportunity: It used to be ringtones now what?
nities within the mobile space especially in the areas of mobile app marketing and advertising as the app market is proliferating across the carrier, handset/OEM and off-deck platforms. At the event, some of the coolest mobile startups showcased the apps that they built. Some of the presenting companies included Ayansys, Blackpepper, Clarice Technologies, Define Labs, Envision Mobility, Genius Port, Hakuna matata, Money-on-Mobile, Mobuute, Mobiz Infotech, Mobile2Win, Omni-Bridge Systems, Spardin, Software workshop, Tech Solutions, Tritonetech and Webonise Lab. Mobuute Technologies walked away with the Top Mobile Apps award. The other panel discussion at the conference was on Carriers and Handset makers want a piece, too: Where will they go? Sunzay Passari,
Executive Vice President - Telecom & VAS, Essar Telecom Group while speaking on this said, When there are far too many applications very few of them reach the audience. The developing companies should keep in mind this when developing their applications where their chance of success is far more. Krishna Durbha Head Customer Value Management, Reliance Communications felt that the interesting facet of this conference was the opportunity that it gave the development community to interact intensely with Venture Capital companies & Operators. Organizations are no longer merely dipping their toe in the water, the major brands and advertisers now realize that mobile is the next big thing. But how do you execute mobile campaigns? Shardul Mohite CEO, We-
Mobile Marketing
bonise Lab; Prasad Ramanathan Associate Vice President (Software), Patni Computer Systems and Viswanath Ramachandran Chief Technology Officer, Webaroo Technology shared their experiences of how the big brands have turned mobile marketing to their advantage, providing insight to developers and technology providers who are looking to reach the mass market. Prasad Ramanathan from Patni Computer Systems felt, Overall the conference was great platform from the standpoint of learning about the consumption patterns of mobile applications within the Indian context. And being able to get the perspective of different stakeholders in the mobile ecosystem (i.e. application developers, advertisers/ content aggregators, application distributors, operators, venture capitalists) in one place was a great value addition.
The Smart Techie
April 2011
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April 2011
The author is VP, Longcheer India
TECHNOLOGY
By Arvind Sharma
izon Wireless formed a consortium called the Open Handset Alliance that encourages open source development of Android. In this process, unlike Apples iOS, which is a closed system, source code of the OS is made available to developers to work on and make interesting applications. Android based devices can be customised to your liking. You can decide the look and feel of your homepage, your applications; and much more.
ndroid has hit the world like a massive tsunami and with every passing day its appeal keeps getting stronger. Nothing, it seems, can come in the way of the gigantic Android wave. Phone users are certainly not complaining, they are busy enjoying the ride. In the early to mid 2000s, whenever someone talked of a business phone, you would inadvertently think of a Windows or a Symbian based device, which offered few state-of-theart features like GPS, touch screen etc. In 2007 Apple unveiled its smartphone, which ran on Mac OS X custom built for its phone. And a few
The Smart Techie
A
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April 2011
android Mania
The
years back, Google too announced its foray into the mobile OS business with the Android. These two developments completely revolutionized the mobile space. The situation has only gotten tougher with the consistent process of software and hardware upgrades by the brand. However, Google, which has always believed in having an open environment for software development, challenged the might of the iPhone and today, Google can easily take pride in the fact that the Android OS is activating close to 200, 000 devices everyday! Android invasion The first Android OS or the phone was nowhere in comparison to the look and
More Options in Hardware One of the prime factors working in favour of Android has been its sheer omnipresence across all kinds of devices. While other smartphone leaders like Apple, Blackberry and Nokia themselves manage the hardware and softwares of their devices which limits the number of devices their software run on. Android is open source and hence, the OEM has to concentrate
only on the hardware specs, while Google keeps its focus on development of the OS. Using this strategy, Android has been gaining market share with tremendous speed across the US and Western Europe. A recent IDC report claims that Android is the only OS, which has registered positive growth. This onslaught, in addition to the OS sporting features, which arent present in other devices, is also because of the options consumers have. Android devices are available across all price categories and in all possible form factors that gives it an edge over others. Features in OS One of the features that all iPhone or Blackberry users dont have and Android has, is the one that allows users to issue voice based commands. So with an Android you can speak your SMS, Email, Note, Calendar entry and
much else. You can also speak your start and end destinations to the Googles voice based navigation system. The recent Android 2.2 update, is packed with some innovative features like USB tethering. Using this you can use your phone as a WiFi hotspot. With every passing year, Google has strengthened the OS, its app store and its network of developers and the future looks bright for Android. With the launch of iPad, Apple has created a new segment in the industry. Every other manufacturer is readying up its own version of the tablet before its too late. Already there are tablets like the Samsung Galaxy Tab and OlivePad, which support the Android OS and are out in the market. In the coming months, tablets from Dell, Asus, Toshiba etc would be unveiled and Apples iOS and Googles Android would fight their wars on new frontiers.
feel, interface, ease of use etc of the iPhone or any other hot selling smartphone. Fast forward to early 2010, when Google unveiled its own smartphone called the Nexus One, which turned the tables. This established Google as a serious player in the mobile OS race. Part of the decision to have its own mobile-OS was the increasing trend of accessing Internet on a mobile device and their considerable presence in web based apps like Maps, Google Voice and more. There are a number of factors that work in favour of the Android. Open development Google, in partnership with hardware manufacturers like Motorola, and HTC, and network providers like Ver-
SiliconIndia is organizing the India Infrarealty Leadership Summit on April 28th in Bangalore. This summit will witness one of the largest convergences of Infrastructure, real estate and construction leaders across the country brainstorm on the burning issues in Bangalore. This mega event will bring together CXOs from Infrastructure, real estate, construction, urban planners, architects, omestic & foreign investors, hospitality and all concerned with the real estate sector in India. The objective of this summit is to bring all the leaders from top construction and real estate companies on single platform to discuss the latest trends. This is a platformfor evoking thought leadership in a global business environment. The summit is an ideal platform for today's eminent leaders to meet and inspire the leaders of tomorrow.
Panel Discussions on:

The new drivers for Construction market Construction Going Green Emerging Opportunities in Construction Industry Project nancing Importance of Design & new building materials
Silver Sponsors
For speaking and sponsorship opportunities write to events@siliconindia.com or call 080- 43112191
Register now at www.siliconind www.siliconindia.com/events
The author is Managing Director, India and SAARC, F5 Networks
TECHNOLOGY
By Anil Pochiraju
ecently I was in a conversation where someone seriously suggested that Web Application Acceleration and WAN Optimization should be the job of developers, since they are in the code and creating the network traffic. At first I was taken aback by this suggesThe Smart Techie
What Developers Should Or Should Not Do
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tion. I was a manager of a small team of developers and admins when Web Application Firewalls first started to be bandied about (though I dont think they had the fancy name then), and went through this entire discussion then. Never in my wildest dreams did I think wed revisit it on the much grander scale mentioned. But that does
bring up the question. What is best left in the hands of app developers and what is not? Not so long ago, a friend of mine who repaired complex systems for a retail chain was laid off and his job eliminated. Even though he could prove that he saved the company a lot money, it was no longer seen as cost effective to maintain a test bench and the tools necessary to fix complex computer systems. It is just too easy to buy extended warranty plans or replace gear before it is worn out to warrant paying someone to do that job anymore. That may change again in the future, but I honestly do not know many enterprises that keep breadboard level repair staff around these days. Why? Because the specialty of making and repairing breadboards is centralized in a place where that is all they do, making it much more cost-effective than every enterprise keeping someone on staff for the eventuality of a breakdown. Even knowing that you will have unexpected failures, you will have them whether you have someone handy to repair them or have to call a service in to repair them. There is a similarity here. The things that a developer can do well are vast, because we do not really have vertical market developers. Oh there are a few, and some places want experience in their vertical, but theres no schooling to be a utility company developer or financial services developer, theres schooling to write software, and the problem domain you are taught to write it for is everything. You differentiate based upon languages or operating systems in college, but not on vertical market. And that is both a plus and a negative. Developers are not security experts, they are software development experts. They are not Web App Acceleration experts, nor are the WAN optimization experts. They are development experts who are very good at turning ideas into applications.
Some are specialized closer to the metal, others are specialized at more business development. Some like my self have done a bit of it all. But only those working for companies that make WAN Optimization, Web App Acceleration, or Security solutions are specialists in their respective areas. There are a few Web App Acceleration developers in the wild, and a few Security developers in the wild, but most have gone to the place where they can utilize their specialty full-time; shops that make these products. And that is reason number one why it is not something developers should be doing. At a minimal level, not making fifteen trips across the network when two will do it, or checking for buffer overflows and SQL insertion attacks before deploying code? Certainly but overarching security or Web App Optimization? No. They wont be as good at is as a dedicated staff, and they wont update it as often as a dedicated staff. The second reason is just as straight-forward. You do not own the source to a whole bunch of your applications, so your developers cant do these things. Of course you could insist that your vendor do in-depth catch-all security or implement web app acceleration in their product, or you could let them develop features your business needs to get the job done with their software. Of course the latter is a better choice if you have a choice. Chances are you will fall somewhere on the spectrum closer to You are not our only customer No than to Oh yes, we have a whole team with nothing better to do, well start re-architecting right away. Again, it is reasonable to expect a certain level of proficiency be built into your purchased apps, but not complete solutions for all these issues. The third reason is a bit more esoteric. This is not what you hire developers for. It just is not. And it is not what your vendors are hiring develop-
Developers are not security experts, they are software development experts
ers for. You are hiring them to make apps the business can use. Is it a wise use of someone who is extremely proficient in the tools you use and has developed for your vertical to write non-business code? Not really.
And fourth? Well fourth is a question of possibilities. In WAN Optimization, some of the solutions are across applications. Or more to the point across streams. Putting that functionality somewhere that sees more than a single applications streams is necessary to get the benefits. The same is true in different ways for Security (SEIM for example) or Web Application Acceleration (you do not optimize
QuickFacts
putting the final touches on a year of worldwide server market growth, fourth quarter 2010 worldwide server shipments grew 6.5 percent year on year, while revenue climbed 16.4 percent, according to Gartner. From a geographic perspective, all regions, with the exception of Japan, grew in revenue with the three highest growth rates shown by North america (24.5 percent), asia/pacific (22.4 percent) and Latin america (12.3 percent).
streaming or logo download per-app unless there is a specific reason to). So developers really cannot effectively write this stuff into an application. At least not and get the benefits offered by tools readily available today. In all of these cases, they are dealing with data on the wire also, so unless your staff writes network drivers, there are some optimizations/solutions that just cannot be achieved from within the application. Fifth is re-use or the lack thereof. Some code that would suit these needs would be highly reusable. Much of it would have to be rewritten with each product/platform/OS, simply because they are not on the wire detecting things, they are speaking a development language, not network protocols. And finally, a point hinted at above, what happens when a better way to do something in one of these specialized areas comes along? Do the developers trained in these things drop whatever theyre doing to respond? In the case of security I would say yes for the other two, as long as your apps are meeting SLAs or business expectations, probably not, even though the new way of doing things might bring a lot of benefit to the organization. So do not push things onto developers that they are not in a position to deliver. Get them training in developing secure software while you install a WAFS and other security tools. Get them training in network communications protocols while installing a WAN Optimization solution. And get them training in optimizing web development projects while installing a Web Application Acceleration product. And keep them primarily focused on building solutions that make your business responsive to the market and your customers. Do not force them to reinvent the wheel, and do not ask them to be a specialist for a short amount of time on a highly complex topic they get enough of that already.
The Smart Techie
April 2011
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April 2011
Technology: By Amit Nath
odern life is becoming more and more inseparable from cloud computing, the most obvious example of this being the widespread acceptance of the social network. Needs have catalyzed growth, and according to research data from 2010, the Cloud market has already surpassed $37.8 billion and is continuing to grow towards $121.1 billion in Y2015. The continual growth of the Cloud market is absolute related to the explosive development of the end products, over one billion users have been accumulated since the beginning of the Internets speedy growth in 1999 through 2010. It is expected that
The Smart Techie
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Cloud Computings Toughest Obstacle!

due to universal mobile device usage, the number of total Internet users will increase to 10 billion in only another 10 years, by 2020! With industry needs and each national governments promotion, it can be said that Cloud Computing has truly entered its stage of growth. Security is the main driver for going cloud: IDCs recent report further reaffirms the growth in the virtualization space. As per IDC, with shipments of virtu-
As more enterprises use virtual servers, they will be searching for security solutions that will protect the server hosting the virtualized environment; the hypervisor; and shield the virtual servers from malware and hacker attacks
CXOs are skeptical: The prospects of the Cloud market are looking promising, attracting investment from many different sources, so at this time, everyone can acknowledge that using Cloud Computing will allow data transmission to become quicker and more easily managed; however, there is a common concern about information security, and all of a sudden a shadow has been cast on Clouds originally bright future. This tells us that information security is an extremely important cornerstone in the development of Cloud Computing! The prospect of data security in cloud computing has security professionals and CXO community taking a cautious approach. The main reason springs from the sense that they do not feel they have a good control of the data out in the cloud. One of the more critical issued is the relative lack of control of end user, especially when
the virtual servers from malware and hacker attacks. With data center consolidation, along with the rise of cloud computing, virtualization and VDI, more and more computing power and data itself are moving into virtual world. So, data security in this environment has become more critical.
Improve delivery of applications/services Security Reduce operating sta /expense Lower total cost of ownership of hardware infrastructure Improve productivity/mobility
26% 26% 9% 29% 34%
38%
Enable consumer devices in corporate network Dont plan to change IT at campus/edge Dont know / NA
7%
38%
10
20
30
40
What they need to look at? It is important for the CXO community to look at products or solutions that are designed to give a security boost in virtualized and cloud environments. Solution that is designed to give enterprises control of security for data stored in public, private or hybrid clouds is ideal. This is because, while cloud service providers have responsibility, enterprises are left holding the bag in the case of a cloud security breach, a solution as mentioned earlier is designed to stop all that by leveraging encryption key-management technology as a service. Such solution
the user is outside the perimeter of the enterprise.
alized servers growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14 percent from 2009 to 2014, it is expected that the robust growth in server virtualization will continue through 2014 as datacenter adoption is increasingly considered mainstream in mature economies and as organizations in emerging regions look for datacenter efficiencies. As more enterprises use virtual servers, they will be searching for security solutions that will protect the server hosting the virtualized environment; the hypervisor; and shield
QuickFacts
The consumer purchase rates for personal computers and mobile phones (excluding smartphones) will decline by 39 percent and 56 percent this year compared with last year, respectively, says a new accenture survey. By contrast, buying rates of 3dTVs (three-dimensional TVs) are expected to rise 500 percent; tablet computers 160 percent; ebook readers 133 percent; and smartphones 26 percent. The survey focused on usage and spending on 19 different consumer electronics technologies among more than 8,000 consumers in eight countries in both emerging markets and developed economies: Brazil, China, india, russia, France, Germany, Japan and the United states.
works by giving enterprises control over their own encryption key, ensuring that they are the only ones who can access sensitive data. In the eventuality of a breach, anyone without that key would not be able to access the infrastructure. It is also critical for CXOs to look at a solution that can help them to avoid vendor lock-in. If one looks at what the cloud does in terms of controlling data, it poses some new challenges. A hosted key management and data encryption service designed to give enterprises more control over data stored in public, private or hybrid clouds. So, it also addresses the challenge of control. A hosted key management and data encryption service will certainly facilitate the movement between the datacenter and the cloud and enterprises can decide when and where keys are released and secure volumes are accessed as well as establish accountability over data access and key deployment with logging and audit functionality. A hosted key management and data encryption service will help the enterprises to go out there and take advantage of the cloud economics and the flexibility that the cloud has to offer. In addition it will secure their cloud environment effectively.
About author
Amit Nath, Country Manager, India & SAARC, Trend Micro
April 2011
The Smart Techie
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April 2011
oday, an alarming increase in crime rate and theft, along with the associated fear of terrorism, is forcing organizations to lay greater emphasis on physical security. As security risks increase, the need to visually monitor and record security events in an organizations environment is growing in importance and video surveillance is becoming a key component of physical safety and security in sectors like public transport, hospitality, airports, BFSI and education. Investments in physical security become more effective and can cost less when tied together over an existing IP network and organizations can benefit from early threat detection, faster response, and enhanced collaboration with local law enforcement organizations. Using the network as an open, scalable platform for integrating security helps organizations to increase operational flexibility, improve protection capabilities, and reduce both risk and cost of ownership. Availability of a comprehensive communication solution, i.e., an integrated response management system enables greater interoperability and better co-ordination between various security agencies and personnel for suitably managing emergencies. Information gathered by each agency is readily available to every other agency involved in an emergency, and each agency can respond accordingly. Since IP-based surveillance provides the ability to access data/ footage from any remote location over the internet, security or other authorized personnel can have faster access to relevant information during emergency. Compared to traditional CCTV cameras, the digital infrastructure is scalable and there is no limit to the number of devices that can be added to the network.
The Smart Techie
The author is Sr. Vice President Advanced Services, Cisco Systems
TECHNOLOGY
By Rakesh Goyal
Technology Play in Physical Safety and Security

Video surveillance and security Organizations that deploy video surveillance stand to benefit from being able to monitor a facilitys environment, people, and assets in real time and record events for subsequent investigation, proof of compliance / audit purposes. The value of video surveillance has grown significantly with the introduction of motion, heat, and sound detection sensors as well as sophisticated video analytics. Physical security solutions that combine IP video surveillance, access control, and incident response, are easy to manage and support. They are based on open standards, and can easily be integrated with products from various other agencies to meet specific requirements across industry verticals such as education, transport, retail and healthcare. Video analytics which enables computer processing and analysis of video helps to alert operators or generate alarms based on specific events- such as people entering the field of view, the direction of an object, or the removal of an item from the field of view. The flexibility of where video analytics can be deployed and who can use it gets enhanced when used on an IP network because the network provides the video to be analyzed and also generates reports that can be distributed anywhere the network goes. In addition to physical security, video monitoring and surveillance can come of use in many other areas as well. In transportation for example, video surveillance systems can help to monitor traffic congestion; in retail, video can be helpful in identifying customer movements in the store, or serve to alert the management when the number of checkout lines need a change. Some video analytics packages even offer the ability to identify a liquid
spill on the sea and generate an alert enabling faster response by custodial services, thus avoiding a slip and fall situation. Product and package shipment operations can also use recorded video to help track and validate the movement of cargo or locate lost packages. With time video surveillance has evolved not only in its application, but also in its deployment. Today the availability of the fourth generation video surveillance systems has made it possible to provide enhanced security wherever required. These solutions provide a unified interface that gives safety personnel a higher level of situational awareness and allows intelligent decisions to be made more quickly. Customers can build cost-effective, modular physical security solutions that are both best-in-class and interoperable. These next generation video surveillance architectures provide increased reliability, higher system availability, greater utility (any camera to any monitoring or recording device for any application, anywhere), increased accessibility and mobility. Multivendor interoperability ensures that these solutions can be used to enhance other building management system capabilities thereby reducing capital and operational expenditures. By converging various applications and technologies on the IP network, fourth-generation video surveillance provides additional benefits and advantages over preceding generations. Fourth generation surveillance solutions also extend the capability of video surveillance gateways (enhanced encoders and decoders) and the network video recorder (NVR), and allow legacy matrix switches to be replaced by standard and typically lower-cost Ethernet switching platforms. Since they help to collapse video switching functions onto an existing Eth-
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ernet switch environment, these solutions reduce the complexity and lower the cost of deploying a video surveillance solution. They also provide video surveillance system owners with the flexibility to design solutions tailored to their unique requirements. As part of an open network, operators can create policies allowing the inherent value of the video, as a source of information, to be used by other safety and security applications, as well as other nontraditional business applications. The Ethernet switch environment provided by the network infrastructure integrates the video stream provided by the NVR when used with PCs for monitoring and reviewing video. Video encoders can make use of the pervasive IP network cabling infrastructure instead of the redundant cabling infrastructures, while long-range camera deployments can benefit from the complete elimination of fiber multiplexers and distribution amplifiers, thereby reducing deployment costs. Fourth generation video surveillance systems are supported by the Video Surveillance Manager (VSM) software
which provides a browser-based user interface to collect, manage, record / archive and distribute video from multiple third party video encoders and IP cameras. This enables operators and users to easily access live or recorded video using a PC, or any other browser equipped device in remote and mobile environments. Additionally, VSM allows for easier integration with other network applications including third party command and control software. Fourth generation video surveillance systems are characterized by interoperability which helps video surveillance system gateways convert or translate proprietary vendor-specific video signals and formats into a common format and share video information with other systems via that common format. It enables the integration of video surveillance with access control and intrusion detection without the need for a centralized server. This ability to integrate, or unify the surveillance system with other alarm systems, increases the effectiveness of security operations and reduces the chances of responding to false alarms. For instance, with video surveillance, a
Services for video surveillance In order to provide the required level of physical safety and security that fourth generation surveillance solutions promise, there is a need to integrate the most effective designs, products, and services to comprehensively deliver safety and security that meet the customer needs. An integrated, services-led solution approach helps to effectively provide emergency response systems for corporate campuses, hotels, schools, critical infrastructure sites, transportation facilities including airports, and cities. Services that help to design and test various security solutions deploy the solution and its supporting management systems; as well provide the detailed operational plans add to customer benefit. Such services must also provide the support needed to plan for and implement the new solution components and/or migrate existing systems, as well as executing and recording the results of the acceptance tests that validate successful deployment.
The Smart Techie
security officer can correctly determine if the source of a door-forced alarm was a gust of wind or an intruder. The availability of a common format for video that is transmitted across the IP network also provides the ability to add new functions such as video analytics anywhere in the network. Whether at the edge of the network, embedded in the camera, in the encoder, or centralized in the monitoring center, a common format enables the same video analytics program to be used for reporting and can varied based on specific circumstances. When the NVR also supports a webbrowser-based graphical user interface and is complemented with video transcoding capabilities, video surveillance monitoring and reviewing can be provide first responders and their centralized safety and security command control with an unparalleled level of information and collaborative capabilities.
April 2011
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April 2011
The author is Co-founder & Vice-President - Products at Sanovi Technologies.
BUSINESS
By Lakshman Narayanaswamy
A
The Smart Techie
The Need for disaster recovery management solutions in indian Banks

official data manually and undoubtedly, it took up a lot of time. This is not the case in the present scenario, where time and work are digitally driven. Globalization has been both key in expanding the opportunities available to Banking sectors, and tough in the face of competition, especially with recent economic concerns. I have my email, my photos, songs and few documents in my server for easy access, but what about the rest of the information that keeps life humming along? Banking details, passport, driving license, income tax and insurance details and other important documents which are essential for your business. The banking industry is perhaps on the forefront of using IT enabled services; almost all listed banks and several mid-cap banks have deployed IT applications for core banking. Core banking enables the bank to offer customer services anywhere across the globe. The Reserve Bank of India, the regulatory body for banks has set up mandates to deploy disaster recovery and business continuity plan and ensure that all banks have access to the
n insiders view on the state of information management in the Indian Banking sector and the need for a strong Disaster Recovery Management (SRM) strategy in the space We are in the 21st century, and it is not surprising that we have moved ahead in terms of economy, technology and globalization. If one could sit and analyze the radical transformation from the past to present, it is quite astonishing. There was a time where one had to manage all the personal and
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risk management solutions. Going forward, banks have to demonstrate compliance to RBIs mandate once in six months. Most of the banks have a primary location where their IT applications run and they also have an alternate site, like any other city where they have the capability to bring up their IT applications if the primary site goes down. Data which includes customer account details are replicated from the primary site to the alternate site on a regular basis. Closely linked are the securities market, buying or selling shares will have a DMAT account. The stock exchange is sustained and driven by IT applications. The market regulator for the stock market is the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). SEBI follows regulations which would require depositories who participate in the market to demonstrate their risk management system including the disaster recovery capabilities of IT applications. There is lot of personal data that the government holds, most of it is on paper but there are huge amount of egovernance projects moving us from the paper to the digital world. The National e-Governance website has tremendous information on ongoing egovernance initiatives. There are projects initiated by central government and some are introduced by state government. The Government has approved a Common Services Centers (CSCs) Scheme for providing support to establish 100,000 Common Services Centers in 600,000 villages of India. The objective of the CSC is to develop a platform which can enable Government, Private and Social sector organizations to align their social and commercial goals for the benefit of the rural population of the country through a combination of IT-based as well as non-IT-based services. A state wide area network (SWAN) is been assigned to network states and district head quarters. Various states are in-
vesting in State Data Centers (SDC) as a key enabler. State Data Centers goals are to consolidate services, applications and infrastructure to provide efficient electronic delivery of G2G, G2C and G2B services. State Data Centre will provide many functionalities and some of the key functionalities are Central Repository of the State, Secure Data Storage, Online Delivery of Services, Citizen Information/Services Portal, State Intranet Portal, Disaster Recovery, Remote Management and Service Integration and more. SDCs also provides better operation and management control and minimize overall cost of Data Management, IT Resource Management, Deployment and other costs. There are several complex projects that have the potential to change and enhance the way of getting our work done with the government. Some of the big projects are: National Citizen Database UID project Passport, Immigration Income Tax E-Courts Land Records While the detailed scope and requirement for each of these projects, which involve citizens data is not available, I am eager to understand the
Almost all listed banks and Mid- Cap banks have deployed IT applications for core banking, and this enables them to offer customer service across the globe
kind of information recovery metrics each of these projects are aiming to satisfy. There are two important metrics that dictate how soon data and an IT application will be made available, if it goes down. The recovery point is a measure on how much information can be lost without adversely impacting the service. If you are transacting at a banks ATM and if the ATM application crashes, you tend to panic and hope no information is lost; else your bank account may not be accurate. In this case the Recovery Point for the ATM application is zero. Considering the land records application, if the application becomes unavailable, as citizens we may have to wait up to two hours for the application to be available again. In this case the Recovery Time for the land records application is two hours. Regulation in banking has gone a long way in ensuring that banks have business continuity and Disaster Recovery plan that protects integrity and security of customer information. Similarly, the need is now for regulation of e-Governance projects where citizen information and services are at stake. Such a regulation must mandate recovery metrics based on the nature of information and sensitivity of the services provided. The Right to Information act is a momentous step for citizens, in addition we need to add the right to have citizens information protected and available in a timely manner. The regulation must require the government agency to demonstrate the ability to continue business within specified recovery metrics after a disaster strikes. As we gradually move to an e-governance model, information and process are captured and implemented using IT applications, it is imperative that we have regulations that forces government agencies to consider information protection, recovery and build appropriate technology solutions and process to ensure citizens rights and expectations are met.
The Smart Techie
April 2011
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April 2011
BUyErS PErSPECTIVE
traction in the BFSI segment. With the competitiveness amongst the major players increasing day by day, the differentiating factor amongst them is customer relationship/ retention and satisfaction. Hence, there has been a lot of demand for our CRM solutions. Currently we have about 18 clients in this vertical including ICICI, Max New York Life Insurance, SEBI and more.
EVENT
Betting high on the enterprise software market
How is CDC Software positioned in India? CDC Software India is the companys biggest development center across the globe and with 75 percent of development work happening from here. At 250 strong workforce, a lot of innovation in the companys product portfolio has been happening from the India center. These innovations majorly find their way in the US and other developed markets but many of our products are now paving in roads to Indian market. The prime focus in India has been the Pivotal CRM offering since past seven years. 90 percent of the 6.0 version of Pivotal was being developed in India and taking it ahead, the next version would be 100 percent made in India. CDC Software wants India to be a profit centre from presently a cost centre. There is a big evolution in the customer services landscape across enterprises, as customers desire to provide more customer services and gain a competitive edge through CRM. The enterprise class feature set of CRM is expensive, but we provide enterprise class products at affordable points for verticals like FSI, Government. Other key focused offerings include Ross Enterprise a suite of ERP for process manufacturers and CDC factory. Which are the major areas of interest for CDC Software? For CDC, the prime verticals of interest are those where governance, risk manageThe Smart Techie
The enterprise market in India is seeing a pivotal rise. The estimated growth for ERP, CRM and SCM solutions are expected to grow by 23-25 percent between 2013 and 2015. With opportunities galore, CDC Software hopes to strike right and capture a chunk of this pie. In a candid conversation with SmartTechie, Nagaraja Prakasam, MD, CDC Software India talks about companys plan of action.
Nagaraja Prakasam
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What are the challenges when venturing into Indian markets? In India the major challenge we find is the lack of stringent regulations. For example, in case of F&B there is not a standard regulatory body that keeps a vigilant eye on vendors, manufacturing units, retail chains and others. In such a case, when an emergency strikes, recall of a particular brand/batch of products is quiet a chaotic process. Hence, currently, we are in the process of evangelizing large retail chains and corporate houses in this sector about the advantages of deploying an ERP/CRP solution like ours. Secondly, the turn around rate of customers is quiet delayed here. A potential client may understand the benefits of deploying an ERP solution but there continues to be a lack of urgency amongst them. But this is a case majorly in the F&B segment. On the contrary, we have seen quite a
ment and compliance (GRC) plays a major role. Hence, F&B (food and beverage) is the largest market globally since With FDA in the US and similar regulatory bodies in European countries keep a strict vigilance in terms of quality of food materials being imported into their country. Apart from this, process manufacturing which includes life sciences and steel and natural products, is the second largest market. Finally it is the BFSI sector which also sees GRC playing an important role.
How do you target the potential customers? The broad strategy is to appoint two to three specialized partners per product. We are identifying partners with strong domain knowledge across a particular vertical. We appointed 5 VARs across India who implement and also enhance our solutions as per customer needs. We are keen to align with partners who believe in enhancing the services business of their customers. For CRM, we have franchisee partner programs wherein we invest in small start up reseller companies. There is more commitment as these partners are more focused to work with single vendor. What are the future plans? We see huge opportunity in India as a market. With advent of cloud computing, we see a large potential in the SME segment. Apart from the existing verticals, higher education, wellness (preventive healthcare), e-governance (RTI) are promising areas of opportunity. We also hope to expand in terms of work force this year. In terms of product portfolio, we have lauched several new products and have been growing both organically and in-organically (through acquisitions). Since 2009, we have made three acquisitions and would be interested to do some more if the right opportunity presents. Additionally we have been making some minority investments of up to $3 million in promising companies that compliment our product portfolio.
Galore at SiliconIndia Marketing Symposium

TAGEM process i.e Talk, agree, goal, execute and measure Then the conference moved on to the social web trends for marketing and how to leverage these trends, and how marketers need to become more creative and different to get noticed in the Social web, so that their businesses President, Reliance ADA groups telling us about how the customers permission is absolutely necessary whilst doing any kind of mobile marketing, otherwise the number of "DND" (Do not Disturb) requests will increase and the number of responses decrease.
arketin Strate
ies
iliconIndia Marketing Symposium was held in Bangalore on Feb 04th, an exceptional event which assisted marketers to approach National and International Marketing challenges with fresh thinking. This event brought in several marketing leaders, professionals and practitioners at the single platform to explore effective marketing methods and Strategies. This conference addressed different marketing & branding topics in both consumer and business-to-business contexts, including high technology products, services, and manufactured goods. The event kick started with the Market Research for Brands using the mobile by Sanjay Swamy, Chairman, ZipDial. Then it moved on the alignment of Sales and Marketing- Making a case on that we had Kaushal Veluri, Director Marketing from Citrix who said It is critical that sales and marketing align for the overall success of the organization. Organizations in which sales and marketing are aligned see a 20 percent growth in their annual revenue, according to a study by Aberdeen Group. Also the two issues that sales and marketing face in their alignment are perception & Communication to get them to align, organizations must follow the
will start finding ROI in Social Media. Ravish from Regalix shared his thoughts on this at our event. Another important aspect is the Social Media Marketing, Shekhar Ramamurthy, Deputy President, United Breweries says Social media is rapidly evolving and marketers cannot ignore it. To harness its potential you have to listen, interact and engage with consumers in interesting and innovative ways. We had Krishna Kumar, Vice
Overall, the event witnessed an audience of 500 marketing professionals. The audience as well as the speakers found it a great platform for interaction. The conference proved to be an eye opener about how for next three years, major marketing challenges will be based on the impact of technology on communication with target audiences current and prospective. Indian marketing scene really looks bright for the future.
The Smart Techie
April 2011
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April 2011
BUyErS PErSPECTIVE
EVENTS
Building expertise in specialized Technology offerings

Founded in 98, Prithvi Info Solutions is rapidly growing IT services provider with specialized focus on telecom engineering and services. The company went public in 2005 and today has emerged to be a $400 million multinational information and communications technology company. In a candid interview with SmartTechie, Nitin Vyakarnam, AVP - Global Marketing and Aliances, Prithvi Information Solutions, talks about the current market scenario, challenges and new areas of opportunities mid sized companies.
200
How is the U.S. market post recession? We see spending rebounding. The IT spend by companies has increased. In both India and U.S. there has been emergence and adoption of new technologies, the prime being Business Intelligence. Cloud computing and business process management is other areas of opportunity. Telecom engineering services is one of the major offerings for this market and hence the U.S. and Brazil is important and we are working on lot of new technologies like long term evolution, 3G, WiMax and more. How do you stay ahead of competition? Every mid sized company in India is a competition to each other. For us it is the specialized services where we
Where do you see the next big opportunity in India? Indian IT industry is an exciting place to be and can be categorized in 2 parts: e-governance and private sector. In the govt. sector there is tremendous traction, especially in the IMS space. At Prithvi, we are building three data centers in India for Haryana, Nagaland and Maharashtra governments for their respective e-governance initiatives.
The Smart Techie
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bring an edge. For example, in analytics, we are one of the first companies to start an R&D division six ears ago. Prithvi as a services company has a R&D division where we have do researches solving customer problems. The R&D division churns out lots of solutions, many of which have converted to expert business solutions. This has become a big differentiator in terms of the quality of services we can offer in these specialized areas. We can beat the best in the world in these areas. Today, our clientele includes Fortune 50 companies across verticals like Telecom, BFSI, Retail and Healthcare.
Nitin Vyakarnam
What are the future plans? We hope to become the pre-eminent provider in India for telecom engineering services, in terms of maintaining and running networks for companies. The same will be the case in India, Brazil, Canada, U.S. and other countries. We also see that Cloud and SI as a service line would start to play a much bigger role in the way emerging markets go forward. In next five years we would see these areas pushing and becoming a larger pie of the revenue.
What are the challenges? Though spending amongst clients is increasing but the challenge we see is in the margin pressure. We see customers in the U.S. wanting to do variety of services but at a lower rate. This is the problem that small and mid size companies in India are grappling with today. The top five IT/ITeS players can handle this but the mid sized companies will have to improvise to handle the demands. We feel that developing expertise in niche areas like analytics and mobility services will help us increase our margins. Next is the ability to bring a differentiation to the customers plate as compared to the competition which we have fairly done successfully.
HR Professionals
re you a Smart HR Manager? This was the theme of the one day Siliconindia HR Symposium held on Februrary 26 in Bangalore. The symposium gathered over 200 HR professionals who came in discuss the implementations and impact of HR technologies. The event provided exceptional networking between the Human Resource executives, HR Professionals, Consultants, Academicians, Researchers and the speakers, brought all of them on a single platform to explore various aspects of the theme Smart HR Managers of 2011. Smart HR managers adopt a structured approach for making their life easy while hiring new people and retaining the existing ones. This structured approach to talent management involves systematic processes at each stage of human resource management- from searching talent, managing talent and talent engagement. The event had Prithvi Shergill, Senior Vice President, Human Resources, Inclusion and Diversity - Accenture India who shared his expert views on this at our event.
come together @ Silicon India HR Symposium

A session on Organizations Future: Employee learning & development was addressed by Dr Pallab Bandyopadhyay, Director Human Resources, Citrix Systems who said, Current trends in Learning and Development is to make people learn in a manner so that they feel they are in control, so trainers are out and facilitators are in, learning is more holistic now and the emphasis on making them learn "Why" first before "How" In a scenario where emphasis has shifted from employment to employability you will not exist if you do not learn and develop continuously. Among the other aspects of HR technologies and competencies that were addressed at the event, was the topic Outsourcing: A strategic solution for which Nayana Prabhu, Lead Consultant Corporate HRD from Wipro, said, To any process that can be standardized and therefore needs to be repeated again and again without any change is ripe for being outsourced. The HR processes that do not lend themselves to be outsourced are culture building, creating the originations identity & the talent building processes.
Overall it was an enriching symposium for all HR professionals, which provided an exposure to diverse areas such as Organizational management, Personnel administration, Manpower management, and Industrial management from excellent speakers who gave in their expert views and presentations on different topics. The event was sponsored by Quadmo Solutions. Rohit Rawal, Director, QuadMo Solutions said, "It was a great event, with many eminent HR speakers and experienced HR professionals in the audience. What was quite exciting to us as a firm was the excitement and the eagerness among HR practitioners to launch innovative rewards & recognition initiatives in their firms, in order to enhance employee retention. Because, clearly, the traditional R&R policies have not yielded the desired results and employees all across are now expecting something really refreshing in this space." The other partners who helped bring this event to a successful culmination were Adrenalin, Hiremantra, TataMcgraw Hill, Resume Fox and Aim Plus Staffing Solutions.
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April 2011
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April 2011
EVENT
Women in Leadership
he history of women in leadership roles always speaks of struggle and hard work. Challenges surround her from her early childhood, but she is intelligent and sharp, her wit, charm, ambition and abilities to be influential have led her to be a leader. SiliconIndia organized the Women Leadership Summit for all her achievements on 25 Feb 2011 across five cities in India at Pune, Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai and Chennai and on March 12th in Hyderabad. The event saw over 600 corporate delegatesmid and senior level women executives in each city come together to celebrate the great strides women are making in the business world.
An Insight
Put yourself first in any competitive work environment. Performance and hard work matters. You get what you negotiate. Ask for higher roles, ask for higher responsibilities. Be assertive. Have mentors. A mentor knows best, so cultivate relationships with people whose judgment you trust and go out and network. Your network is your job. Womens Work: The Great Juggling Act Every woman, no matter what age or stage in life, finds herself juggling many priorities, responsibilities, relationships, and pressures.
Ascending the Corporate Ladder Moving up is a challenge, either as a tech lead or biz lead. What does it take to make the cut? How to break through the barriers? Speakers shared their good times and not so good times, as they examined the formulas for success, and enlightened those who do not already know about the mountains they still have to climb. Sujitha Karnad, Chief Transformation Officer, Tech Mahindra said, Women are competent, qualified and are able to excel in several fields and have broken the myths of glass ceilings and walls. Women still give family high priority while making career decisions, but always come back with renewed energy to take on more responsibilities.
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Much has to be done to support women in the mid parts of their career to ensure that they reach higher echelons of management, and I think this will certainly happen with time. Sudha Gopalakrishnan, Sr. VP, Polaris Software) and Valsala Vijaykumar, Asst. GM, Canara Bank, shared their views on Ascending the Corporate Ladder at the Chennai event, and the qualities that women need to work on to enable ourselves in the level playing field at that level. While focusing on these attributes they explained how some of the inherent qualities help women in such positions and talked about the need for understanding and bridging the gap. They both echoed the thought in unison that at those levels it is more about how well the team does and no more a question of how capable
an individual is. What makes women leaders distinctively different is that their (inherent) true self nature always keeps them centered in their being, thus bringing high levels of sensitivity and intuition, empathy and collaborative approach, in addition to the stereotype traits that a male leader brings to the workplace. Having said this, it is important to say that it is not a question of who is better. Male or female leaders are as adept, or as bad. It is always the man or woman in question, said Ranjana Maitra, General Manager - Global Head Healthcare & Manufacturing BPO, Wipro at the Mumbai event. Concluding, Seema Grover, Associate Director Mergers and Acquisitions, Dr.Reddys Laboratories said, To ascend the corporate ladder be loyal to yourself.
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Women are naturally endowed with empathy, ability to multitask and delegate. These are critical traits that help women professionals prioritize both at work and home. It is not humanly possible to be good at everything, so pick the choices you want to run with and do them very well. Support of the family is extremely important, explained Purnima Menon, Head Marketing, Infosys. Adding to this Padmini Sundaram, Vice President, HSBC bank said, Personal, professional and social commitment and excellence is interlinked and non-exclusive. Participation in social initiatives which reach grass root helped me become a better manager and a better human being. In India, the balancing act is a lot easier with the social structure and support system that we women have. Building bridges and nurturing the
circle of family, friends and professional network is the key to maintaining this balance. The panelists also cited instances of how they divided work and inculcated support from children as well. Gita Ramachandran, Vice President ERP & IT, Bharat Petroleum said, Your work life balance is in your hands. Work life balance is a state of well being that a person can reach, which is self determined, and which allows one to manage multiple responsibilities at work, home, and in community effectively and which supports physical, emotional, family, and community health, but without grief, stress , guilt or negative impact. To strike a balance be aware of what gives you fulfillment and what causes you stress, exercise the power of choice by embracing those which nourish you, and releasing those which drain you and Experience more energy and power in your life. The more you realize that your life is created by your choices you become more energetic, powerful and guilt free. You will have the life you want and not the life you end up with. Learn to prioritize and delegate, that will ensure one spends time only on important aspects and that will give time for self and growth, One need not be liked by all, discern and say no where required and ask for help as necessary. Spend at least 15 minutes in a day for one self. Never carry guilt said Ramani B Shetty, Vice President, TCS. At the Chennai event, Devi Jayaraman, VP, Mphasis drew an analogy on how an average women juggles her act with the various tasks at hand and it is not a novel idea that the IT industry has brought it. Pramila Hari Center Head AM, Logica India brought in the perspective of the amount of planning and scheduling that is required to juggle the various acts. Gayathri Viswanathan, Vice President Delivery, Maarga Systems, gave an example of how she has extended the IT concept of Daily Huddle in her family and how this helps them in managing their expectations and
have clarity on what needs to be addressed. When the rest of the panel spoke about how women juggle between work, family and kids, it brought in the perspective that juggling is not necessarily restricted to working moms and each one of us juggle every day and try to give our best with the changing priorities. It is essential to know which ball to drop at any point in time when things get out of hand. Priya Ganesh, Global Solution Architect, CapGemini, shared her experience when she worked in a village as part of an NGO and how an uneducated lady (called The Administrator) juggled things in her life to raise her three daughters and served the NGO too while being a part of it. Life is about the choices that you make and you need to be aware of the choices you have and then be happy with whatever you decide. You need to prioritize different things at different times of your life, for instance, you will have times when your career takes high priority and your personal life takes a back seat and times when the opposite happens. You need to make a conscious choice at these times and be satisfied with these decisions. Make sure your home is set up in a way to support your career aspirations, get help where you need it, be it through family or hired help. There is no pride in cooking every meal on your own, said Shireen Alam, Director, Sapient. Balancing is an act that we grow up doing from early years at school, to higher education, profession and work. Therefore, the challenge of balancing should be treated as only transactional. While making a choice, or creating a so-called balance, we will surely have to let go of something - basically a lesser priority will need to be let go. Once we decide on what is lesser priority, then letting go should not be a painful process. Ultimately, the stress that we feel in terms of balancing is best dealt through the mind - take a decision, come to peace with it and then stay convinced about it.
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April 2011
In our Indian context, we are blessed with a family support system which is better than many other parts of the world and this should be leveraged to bring semblance in life, said Veenu Jaichand, COO, Centum WorkSkills (A Bharti Associate & NSDC) at the Delhi event. Kavitha Dhar, Director, Worldcon Technologies, speaking on the same topic said, Meaning - Managing Energy - Positive Framing - Connecting Engaging; these 5 dimensions of leadership help an individual with juggling multiple roles. One needs to find meaning in what one does, manage energy so that one has it when one needs it, with posi-
systems said, Innovators are forward thinking, create new ideas, market those ideas and create their patents in the society. Women as innovators / entrepreneurs bring value to enterprise in a rapid changing world. Common barriers to womens advancement as innovators lack of definite development opportunities, imbalance of recognition and adequate support with excessive difficulties, work-life balance. Some of the driving forces for women innovators to excel are: a. Motivation with respect to wages, job security, intrinsic motivation, working condition et al,
The Women Innovators Throughout history famous female inventors and mostly have contributed enormously to the world of invention. Women inventors are responsible for a wide variety of inventions that we all encounter in our daily lives, from the automatic dishwasher to life saving medical inventions. What is the driving force for women innovators that motivates them to excel? Panelists all across the cities shared their personal experiences and advice. Srividya S, Vice President, HCL Info
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tive mindset and positive approach to life, have an optimistic mindset then nothing is impossible, stay in touch with the environment, society, self so that there is a meaning to what one does and finally engage in voicing your thoughts, take risks, make choices and be responsible for what one chooses.
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b. Self-efficacy - Womens self-efficacy is correlated to achievement and positive interactions and it is hypothetically proved that high self-efficacy women are likely to excel and engage in more innovative behavior, c. Women empowerment Self-defining, authenticity, creativity, increased diversity in thinking, freedom to express ideas and innovations without constraints and d. Leadership style - Women use a more participative or democratic and a less autocratic or directive leadership style - a pattern well suited to 21-century global organizations. The contribution made by women innovators as patent holders and inventors is only around 10 percent across the globe. It is imperative for women to take an active role in research and innovation. Women have all the characteristics such as intelligence, patience and diligence to
be successful researchers and innovators, said Shyamala Jayaraman, Vice President - R&D, Ramco Systems. Giving a different perspective on Innovation, Rohini Shankar, Senior Business Analyst, L&T Infotech, said, Innovation many people link this word straight away to invention (and this is right in many cases) and a perception comes out of a disruptive nature. Here is what she thinks is important: The application of innovation in everyday life is what will improve quality of life/comfort and in most cases should be coupled with costs and values. The key is that lots of money is globally being spent on R&D across private and government sectors and as result disruptive invention is being created in silos. In todays context it is important to understand the applicability across different areas. A case in point is the areas of Nano particles, different industries are discovering new particles which are being utilized in altogether different industries for example Nano research in the super conductor industry is paving the way for smarter drug deliveries. Another important aspect of Innovation is to incrementally improve on processes and products on a continuous basis. Some times what technologies have been prevalent for a long time and yet remained peripheral become mainstream due to multitude factors including market readiness, growth of complementing technologies etc. A case point here, would be the innovative application of TeleHealth which has been in existence for some time. With the boom in telecommunication technologies and integration of medical and other devices with software applications, TeleHealth will impact the lives of millions of people in a positive way. Innovation is when the three meet what technology can accomplish, what is desirable to users and what is vi-
able in the market. Innovation has to be done on all fronts Technology, Process, Pricing and Offering. Innovative organization is one which is nimble, bold and has an engaged work force, said Nandini A, AVP, GlobalLogic
Achieving Success: Turning every Adversity in to an Advantage Sarita Bahl, Vice President and Head, Group Corporate Social Opportunities, Multi Commodity Exchange of India said, Women have all the qualities of a good leader, a good CEO. Nothing fazes her and adversity is her middle name. Adversity is as inevitable as taxes or death. When in a difficult phase - accept the situation, control your mental resistance, assess the best and worst case scenarios and take positive steps, knowing that This too shall pass. More often than not, the situation is not as bad as we mentally make it out to be, and in retrospect, helps us move to something we would not have thought of if we did not face the adversity said Akila Jaikumar, Senior V.P & Director, Bodhtree Consulting. Sujata Puranik Rakhra, Leader, Global Branding and Advertising, Dell, said, It is critical that we recognize that we are different and celebrate our differences without being diffident or defensive. Nevertheless, it is important that women speak up when they encounter gender discrimination, overt and covert. Adversity is not gender specific, although the challenges men and women face may be different. A sense of confidence in ones identity and professional capability will help turn adversity into advantage, at the Bangalore edition of the event. Adversities are inevitable, but suffering is optional, stressing on this we had Tanuja Abburi, Global HR Director, Intelligroup who said, Women handle adversity different from men and their reaction to adversity is very diverse. A few syndromes that women get caught while handling an adversity are Why Me Syndrome, Poor Me Syndrome, I
Sharing Thoughts and Experiences Deepa Deo, Lead - India Leadership Development, ThoughtWorks shared her views on the overall event and said, It was a heartening experience to meet, interact and share stories with so many bright and enthusiastic women professionals at the Womens Leadership Summit on Friday. For such a large gathering, the strong sense of community and fellowship in the room was amazing! I am sure a lot of us left the Summit with a rejuvenated sense of purpose. The summit had a good mix of women professionals from various walks of life including Healthcare, Education, IT, NGOs to name a few, which led to rich and engaging discussions with the audience. It is heartening to see 100s of women leaders come together to learn and share in events such as this. Hope to see a lot more men participate in upcoming events to brining in different perspectives to the discussions! said Nandini Sabanayagam, General Man-
am the Victim Syndrome, Not Good Enough Syndrome and others. Accepting and adapting to change or adversity is the first step towards benefiting from it and turning it into opportunity. Adversity is a call to action. Allow adversity and change to wake you up, sharpen your instincts and move you forward. It does not matter how many times you get knocked down. What matters is how often you get back up.
ager, Global Accounts, UST Global. It was indeed a pleasure to be there among some eminent industry leaders and hear them talk. I had a good time sharing advices and my experiences with other women folks and really got a good opportunity too to network with couple of successful ladies from different organizations and domains, expressed Nivedita Jain, Sr. Manager, Ness Technologies. It was a very enjoyable experience for me interacting with the aspiring women leaders from diverse backgrounds and sharing our own experiences. I was delighted to see that most of us have self belief in our capabilities and are willing to challenge the myths associated with women leadership. It was also interesting to see that most of us face similar challenges and forums like this always enrich our experiences and equip us better to face them in our work life said Jaya Singh, Senior Manager, Texas Instruments. The Summit was a great forum for women to network and share viewpoints; topics that are usually considered sensitive or close to heart, and would otherwise not be discussed in all forums, were brought to the fore and this helped open up new channels of thinking. The ideas discussed during the Summit will also help reinforce women to stand by their beliefs, be focused on work and not necessarily live up to someone elses expectations. It will allow women to pick a place for themselves in the complexity of their lives at work and at home; help them understand that they have to live their lives to the best of their capabilities and aspirations, as good humans and not necessarily as superwomen. Gender diversity is not about men against women but about women finding their feet at their own rhythm; this needs to evolve at a natural pace and I think the speakers at the forum were able to put up this thought with conviction, said Sunitha Lal, Business - HR Head BPO, Mphasis.
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April 2011
The author is Executive Vice President & Chief People Officer, Symphony Services. He can be reached at mahalingam.c@symphonysv.com
PEOPLE MANAGER
By C. Mahalingam
Beyond Onboarding Integrating People with the Organization
rganizations and managers invest a lot of time and effort in selecting and offering right candidates with the hope that the selected candidate is excited about the role and the opportunity and will settle down and contribute for a fairly long time. But experience shows that no more than half of new hires, particularly, in the management roles really settle down. This is increasingly becoming the trend also with hiring individual contributors. What a wasted effort! I would like to discuss this key issue in this column to explore how business and HR leaders can work on this to save precious time and money and induct people better. This reminds me of what the world witnessed with the Apollo 13 launched in April 1970. This spaceship was crippled by a major failure in the cryogenic
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O
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oxygen system. The planned lunar landing had to be aborted. The Control station in Houston decided to slingshot the spaceship using the gravity of the moon. Lunar excursion module was modified to become the sort of lifeboat for the astronauts. This module designed to sustain two people for two days now had to sustain three people for four days. In short, this was a situation that had no room for any error either on the ground or in space! If the spaceships trajectory was even a bit off, it would skip away from Earths atmosphere beyond redemption. On boarding key employees (or any employee for that matter) is no less challenging than the scene described above. It has all the challenge, excitement and uncertainty requiring careful attention. Often times, it is left to the recruiter to handle this. The recruiters do their best which more often than not
turns out to be not good enough for the challenge. Of all the reasons why early exits take place despite great moments of truth during recruitment, one can recognize several traps that organizations walk into, out of their ignorance or more often their underestimation of the task of integration. Seven Deadly Integration Traps: Studies in the area of new employee integration suggest that there are several traps that must be recognized and avoided to soft-land the new hire. Many of these are present in almost all the organizations, irrespective of size and geography. Let us list them here: Trap 1: Minimizing the challenge: Often done with good intention not to intimidate the new hire, this becomes even more complicated with the candidates often noticed tendency to exaggerate their capabilities! Trap 2: Thrown into the Ocean: New employee comes on board and discovers that he is required to swim across the ocean and not a swimming pool Trap 3: Team leader styles mismatch: Excessive control or hands off style of the newly hired manager creates a set of challenges for the team and managers themselves Trap 4: Relationship with Key stakeholders: The newly hired manager requires building strong relationships not only with the team that reports, but with peers and senior managers and other key stakeholders in functions like procurement, finance, business development and sales. Underestimating this can reduce effectiveness Trap 5: Living with the legacy actions: The new manager often has a plateful of issues either created or left unaddressed by his or her pred-
ecessor. This is one of the major issues in our organizations today in the absence of defined processes for documenting discussions and promises before an incumbent manager leaves the company Trap 6: Lack of organization support: Quite common, this involves a precarious situation where the new manager goes through euphoria for the first few days of joining and thereafter all the smiles and support vaporize! It is business as usual for everyone else, except the new hire! The new employee is left to fend for themselves or told that you should catch up fast to be successful here, understand? Trap 7: Finding the right balance Trap: This involves a situation where the manager is told either his actions are too much too soon or too little. Not recognizing the fact that the new joiner needs encouragement and guidance rather than discouragement and criticism is
Who owns the induction any way? Many HR and business leaders will answer this right even in their sleep: The immediate manager! Well, the good news is they are right. Bad news? It stops there! More often than not, the integration beyond the induction is left to the junior most HR executive or worse still to a buddy assigned to the new employee. In organizations where a buddy system exists, both the line manager of the new hire and the HR leave it to the buddy to induct and integrate. It is important to realize that the buddys role is critical, but does not substitute the role of HR or the immediate manager.
often the cause of this trap In reality, there are many more traps, but I have only listed the most common ones that newly hired managers go through in the first 3 months of their association. Not paying attention to these traps leads to precious loss of hard-hired talent.
Headwaiter Mentality! Sir, how is everything? When you go to dine in any decent restaurant, you are often approached by the head waiter with a question: Sir, how is everything? Often the immediate manager takes on the role of headwaiter. Well, not quite really. The headwaiter actually is much more sincere in asking this question! The next level manager just goes through the motion to get some guilt off his chest! Recognizing the importance of integrating the key hires is the first simple step towards arresting the hemorrhage of the talent even before they spend 6 months into the system. Our organizations have systematically underestimated the importance of employee integration and have paid a huge price. Lessons are as obvious as sun light on a bright day, but sitting in air-conditioned offices, we do not seem to understand the lessons either! In the next couple of columns, I will cover this with more insights and ideas.
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LOGITECHS COOLING PAD N120 NOW IN INDIAN MARKET Logitech brought its cooling pad N120 to India. The cooling pad has a USB powered fan for improved airflow around the laptop and it features rear air intake. At 27 db the cooling pads fan is virtually silent. Its maximum power consumption is 5V at 200mA. The pad can be used with laptops of up to 39 centimeter display. The pad comes with a 3year manufacturers guarantee.
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AMD IN MARKET WITH RADEON HD 6990 GRAPHICS CARD AMD launched the new Radeon HD 6990 graphic cards. It delivers a single graphics card score of P11865 in the industry standard 3DMark11 benchmark. Radeon HD 6990 graphics cards include AMDs second-generation, Microsoft DirectX 11-capable architecture, advanced image quality features, and AMD PowerTune intelligent technology to enable higher clock speeds and faster gaming. It also features a Unified Video Decoder 3 (UVD3), a dedicated video playback accelerator that provides better HD video, online video and Blu-ray 3D quality.
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LIMITED EDITION LG LP500 OPTIMUS ONE MOBILE PHONE LG unveils a new phone in its Optimus One series, LG LP500. Only 1000 units of this Android 2.2 Froyo run phone will be sold. The phone which is powered by a 600MHz processor features a 3.15 megapixel camera, a 3.2-inch capacitive touchscreen display with 320480 resolution, and an internal memory of 170 MB. For connectivity it has GPRS, EDGE, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g and Bluetooth v2.1. The LP500 also has got a shiny gold World Cup logo on it back.
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HTC unveiled its new phone, Desire Z, in India. This 3G touch phone also has a slide out QWERTY keyboard. The 3.7 inch screen gives a 480X800 WVGA resolution. This Android 2.2 (Froyo) based mobile, comes with HTC Sense and is powered by an 800 MHz CPU. It has a 512MB RAM and a 1.5GB internal storage which can further be expanded up to 32GB using microSD memory card. Desire Z features a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and flash. Apart from 3G, connectivity options include GPRS, Wi-Fi, EDGE, Bluetooth 2.0, and a micro USB port. Its 1300 mAh battery gives a talk time of up to 400 minutes on WCDMA and 590 minute on GSM, and a 430 hours of standby time.
SONAR 5.1 CHAMPIONSHIP GAMING HEADSET FROM CYBER SNIPA Cyber Snipa comes to market with its new high end headset series, the SONAR 5.1 Championship gaming headset. The headset features 8 individual speakers, 4 in each ear cup including a subwoofer and an in-line controller that allows independent control of each channel. Its headband construction with mesh padding allows improved airflow. Cyber Snipas 3D positional audio software provides gamers with better sound effects. It has an in-line media controller which is located on its three meter long USB.
April 2011
Price: ` 35,000 MOTOROLA
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Motorolas tablet Xoom, which is also an inaugural Honeycomb tablet of Google, will hit Indian market by May 10th. The 10.1 inch tablet that runs on Android Honeycomb platform is powered by a dual-core 1GHz Nvidia Tegra SoC processor. It features 1GB DDR2 RAM and up to 32GB internal memory. The 3G tablet has a 2 megapixel front facing camera for video conferencing and a 5 megapixel rear side camera which is capable of 720p HD video recording, duel LED flash, and autofocus. Xoom also features proximity, ambient light, barometer, gyroscope sensors. Its 24.5 W-hr battery provides up to nine hours of browsing time on 3G, up to 10 hours on wifi, up to 10 hours video playback time, and 14 days of standby time.
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April 2011
EVENT
Understanding
Web Apps Conference 2011

iliconIndia organized the WebApps 2011- the Web Application Conference in Pune on Feb 26th. The conference brought together web developers, web designers, technology enthusiasts, innovators, vendors, and users. The event kick started with the inaugural keynote on Continuous Delivery by Ajey Gore, Head of Technology from Thoughtworks. Then moved on to more open source (the open source libraries) and a vibrant community and it is no wonder that it is being adopted rapidly by most web professionals. The sessions later covered the whole spectrum, right from development and deployment practices to scalability and performance tips to trends to bank on for wannabe entrepreneurs. A session om SOA & Cloud - their Synergy was addressed by Shriranga S Mulay, V P Engineering from Net Magic Soluwhich was delivered by High Performance On Demand ( HIPOD) specialist Bharathraj B Keshavamurthy, Enterprise Solutions Performance Analyst, IBM India Software Labs. He said, Performance engineering is the process by which software is tested and tuned with the intent of realizing the required performance. This process aims to optimize the most important application performance trait, user experience.
Web Apps at Siliconindia
web application frameworks like Ruby on Rails, where Gautam Rege, Co-founder and Director, Josh Software spoke on how Ruby on Rails has emerged as a the game changer for web application development. He said, Ruby on Rails is an open source Ruby web framework that makes it easy to build web applications, deploy them and scale them. A lot of large web applications are built using plain machines that inter-operate via open-source libraries. Ruby has plenty of gems
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tions, who spoke about how cloud scalability helps build scalable SOA infrastructure are like a match made in heaven. He also talked about the synergy between SOA and Cloud and how they complete each other, defining SOA conventionally and the myths associated with it. IBMs unique capability to build solutions across a broad array of software capabilities and industries, was exemplified through their session on "Performance engineering methodologies for WebApps"
The open atmosphere of the conference helped technology professionals and community members form an interesting dialogue amongst the web development community, showcasing some key web technologies. The event helped in fostering communication among the technical communities and also helped promote the understanding of new technologies. The event was sponsored by Big Rock, Techno point Multimedia and Josh Software.
April 2011
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Guru Talk: Naresh Shah, Novell

VC Talk: Suvir Sujan, Nexus Venture Partners

Enterprise Security Special

EMPOWERING TECHNOLOGY LEADERS OF TOMORROW

Govind Rammurthy CEO & MD

EMPOWERING TECHNOLOGY LEADERS OF TOMORROW

Alok Chaturvedi Pradeep Shankar Jaya Smitha Menon

Christo Jacob Hari Anil

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Two Decades of Securing Enterpises

Contents -April 2011

The biggest event for Startups is here

Come, Meet the 'cool startups'

In Pursuit of Excellence in Technology By Naresh Shah, Novell

[In Focus] 10 [VC Talk] 16

[Top 100 B Schools of India] 32 [Event] 38

[Buyers Perspective] 50 [Event] 51

[Buyers Perspective]52 [Event] 53

The android Mania By Arvind Sharma, Longcheer India

SiliconIndias SoftTec Probes Deep into IT Testing By Akanksha Ravindran

[Venture Beat] 18 [Technology] 24

What Developers Should Or Should Not Do By Anil Pochiraju, F5 Networks

[Tech Products] 58 [Event] 62

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Net commerce in India to reach Rs 46,520 crores in 2011

Many Indians gain position in the Young Global Leaders list

University of Buffalo gets its first Indo-American President

Shantanu Narayen is now a member of President's Management Advisory

MIT honors Two Indian American professors

April 9, 2011 New Delhi

Delhi on April 9th, 2011.

Green Cars from Fruits are in the Making

Compiled By Hari Anil

Xilinx with Zynq-7000 s Extensible Processing Platform

Zynga Studio-1 sets up in Bangalore

Thinksoft opens new office in Mumbai

GeForce GTX 550 Ti, New GPU from NVIDIA

The Smart Techie

The Smart Techie

The author is Co-Founder, Nexus Venture Partners

The BesT Time To sTarT aN iNTerNeT CompaNy iN iNdia

The author is Managing Partner, Basil Growth Fund

Emerging Trend Potential for IT Service Providers to Obtain PE / VC Funding

Myntra.com raises `62 Crore in Series B Funding

K12 Techno Service Raises `25 Crore Funding

BankBazar.com Raises `27 crore in Series A

Speakers John Soliveres

Two Decades of Securing Enterpises

Govind Rammurthy CEO & MD

The author is CEO, Silvan Innovations Lab

roadmap for ip Based surveillance systems in india

The author is Vice President, India Product Operations, Symantec

overcome New security Challenges with an information-Centric approach

The author is Director Sales, McAfee India

say hello to the new Consumerized iT workplace

April 9, 2011 Mumbai