How Facebook will gain from India's Little Eye Labs

BANGALORE: Bangalore-based Little Eye Labshas become the first Indian firm to be bought by Facebook, going from creation to acquisition in less than 18 months. 

Little Eye, which its co-founder Kumar Rangarajan said is "like a microscope for mobile app developers," is being acquired for around Rs 90 crore, or $15 million, becoming the third Asian company (the two others are Malaysian) to join the fold of the world's largest social networking site. 

"How much better can it get?" remarked Rangarjan, 38, who is the 'chief ion' of the company, which he says is run by "positively charged particles." 

For Facebook, the deal helps in its push towards the mobile environment, and at a really cheap price. An investor in Little Eye said the American company was striking a really good bargain; such a package would have cost much more anywhere else in the world. Little Eye is majority-owned by its team of eight, including the five founders. GSF SuperAngels and VenturEast Tenet had invested a total of about $400,000 (Rs 2.5 crore) in the fledgling company nine months ago. 

Indian company's tech to improve Facebook apps
"This is our quickest exit so far," said Sateesh Andra, managing director of VenturEast. His fund is estimated to have made a tenfold return on its investment. Facebook's engineering manager Subbu Subramanian said Little Eye Labs' technology will help the social network improve its Android code make more efficient, higher-performing apps, referring to the Linux-based operating system that runs on most of the world's smartphones. 

Rangarajan first met Facebook executives at an annual Google conference in the US six months ago. "They liked the product, and over time the conversation moved to talk of acquisition." 

The deal has enthused the startup community in India with many believing that this is only the beginning of many more such transactions. 

"This acquisition is validation that talented, early-stage product teams which focus on building innovative technologies can create decent exit valuations in a relatively short time span," said Ravi Gururaj, an angel investor who heads the software product council at industry lobby Nasscom. "The fact that Facebook found it attractive to acquire a small, high-value technology team in Bangalore will cause others to open up to India as a future hunting ground." 

Little Eye Labs was founded in August 2012 by Rangarajan and his colleagues from Rational Software. The other co-founders are Giridhar Murthy, Satyam Kandula, Lakshman Kakkirala and Aditya Kulkarni. The entire Little Eye Labs team will move to Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, California. 

The closest parallel to what Little Eye Labs does is US-based Crittercism, backed by Google Ventures. It provides solutions which monitor every aspect of mobile app performance. 

In the short span of its existence, Little Eye, working out of India, was able to win customers such as Qualcomm, Intel and GE. In 2013, there were 100 M&A deals across India's information technology industry. Of this, 31, whose value was announced, were worth $1,906 million (Rs 11,807 crore), according to research firm Venture Intelligence. 

Aashish Bhinde, executive director at investment bank Avendus, was of the view that Little Eye is only one of a few instances where a global company has acquired an Indian firm for its technology. "We need to be careful before calling it out as a major development for the ecosystem. Having said that, one can definitely expect this phenomenon to gather pace over the next 3-5 years." 

Rajesh Sawhney, founder of GSF Accelerator, said the acquisition is a "transformative deal" for India and the emerging world. "This validates our core tenet that Indian product start-ups are now ready for a global play." 

Experts hope small-size technology ventures in India will attract the attention of larger companies. Sharad Sharma, co-founder of software product think-tank iSpirt, was also convinced the acquisition is an indication of what to expect this year. "We will see many more sub- $40 million deals," he said. 

"Smaller exits are the lifeblood of healthy start-up ecosystems like in Israel and the US," said Sharma, who is running a matchmaking programme for product companies.

Source: Times of India

Cybersecurity to get more complicated in 2014: ISACA

HOUSTON: Cyber security is set to get a lot more complicated in 2014, a global IT association has warned all businesses - big or small, asking them to brace up. 

IT and cybersecurity professionals should resolve now to gear up for accelerated change and complexity in 2014, especially in cyber security, data privacy and big data, according to non-profit ISACA, to ring in the New Year securely. 

"The pace of change expected in 2014 will put incredible pressure on technology professionals in the workplace with a focus on keeping IT risk in check while at the same time delivering value to the business," said Bhavesh Bhagat, CEO of EnCrisp, co-founder of Confident Governance and member of ISACA's new emerging business and technology committee. 

ISACA, that provides guidance to help business and IT leaders maximize value and manage risk related to information and technology, has predicted on certain areas businesses should be preparing for in 2014. 

It has asked businesses to prepare for privacy 2.0 as attitudes towards data privacy are unlikely to reach a consensus in 2014. Instead, be prepared to accommodate both those with little expectation of privacy and those who view their personal data as currency and want to control how that currency is spent, it said. 

Slim down big data: Explosive data volumes were the No. 1 issue posed by big data in ISACA's 2013 IT Risk/Reward Barometer. Unmanageable data creates redundancies and is difficult to secure, it said. 

ISACA has also asked businesses to eliminate the excess data and consolidate what remains, to promote sharing and protect using better controls. 

Plan to compete for cybersecurity and data analytics experts: The need for smart analytics people and cybersecurity defenders with the right certifications is only going to grow in 2014. 

It said businesses that plan on hiring during the new year need to make sure their compensation package and job descriptions are competitive. 

Rethink how your enterprise is using your information security experts: With some elements of IT security operational responsibility (including malware detection, event analysis and control operation) increasingly being outsourced to cloud providers, smart leaders are enabling their internal security experts to become hunters instead of just defenders. 

This allows them to proactively seek out the most hard- to-detect threats, build internal intelligence capabilities, construct better metrics and invest in operational risk analysis. 

Ramp up for the internet of (even more) Things: With past research showing 50 billion devices expected to be connected to the Internet by 2020, start working now on a policy governing connected devices, if your enterprise does not have one now, it said. 

Source: Times of India

Why Android smartphones consume more data

Android smartphones are kind of like Hummers. Reminiscent of the oversize, gas-guzzling SUV's, Androids have the biggest screens and tend to use much more data than other types of smartphones, including iPhones. And that higher data usage could rack up heftier phone bills.

So why does Android use more data? The reasons are multi-fold. The most obvious is that Android phones tend to have the largest screens, so they download bigger files and video with more pixels, says Chetan Sharma , a telecom analyst.

Another factor is that Android is less efficient at managing apps than Apple's iOS. For instance, multiple Android apps may be running in the background with things like location data being collected, he said.

Also, Android users typically don't upgrade their operating systems as frequently as iOS users, so their smartphones may not receive fixes improving data management, he said.

Jan Dawson, an independent telecom analyst who previously worked for Ovum, noted that the data traffic numbers may also reflect the profiles of the people who choose Android versus those who choose iPhones. People with larger Android phones are more likely to skip buying a tablet, whereas iPhone owners may be buying iPads and consuming a lot of content there.

Source: Times of india

How language will shape the Internet content?

People will actively seek content in a language they are inherently more familiar with

BANGALORE, INDIA: "The Internet is about culture. You cannot have expats running it." These words from Yahoo's former China president ring especially true in light of the internet giant's exit from the burgeoning Chinese search market earlier this year. Whether your opinion on the reasons for its exit ranges from inspired to self-destruct, there is an irrefutable logic at the foundation of exiting a currently estimated $300 million market - The user base preferred a local offering which was better positioned to cater to their vernacular requirements.

This is a strong indicator of the way forward for internet companies and search engines hoping to become the internet gateway of choice for vernacular users in India. Of the roughly 769 million regional languages speaking population of India, the number of Hindi speakers is just shy of 50 percent making it the biggest potential market for internet services and content providers. 

Despite the fact that the ratio of users accessing vernacular content online in rural India is 64 percent as compared to 25 percent in urban centers, the volume of users is much higher in cities as they hold the bulk of internet subscribers.

A glance at the evolutionary timeline of the internet and it should surprise no one that English has always been and still remains the dominant language of internet content providers as well as technology developers. In the early 1960's, J. Licklider's pioneering research for DARPA established the origins of the internet, it has metamorphosed into one of the most indispensable medium of communication in the modern world.

While the concept of the internet reached Indian shores through services offered by VSNL in 1995, narrow-band connections severely stunted the growth of adoption and subscribers in India. All this changed with the formulation of the national broadband policy in 2005 and received a further stimulus with the 3G and 4G spectrum auctions in the past couple of years. 

The multiple decades that it has taken the bulk of our population to gain access to the internet means that a large set of users who prefer vernacular languages have been left out along this journey. This is not to say that there a complete lack of vernacular content, but that it has much catching up to do.

Today, Internet penetration in India works out to nearly 10 times the population of Australia. India has around 200 million internet users today and it is expected to grow by 243 million by June 2014, making it the second largest user base after China. Numbers published by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India showed that more than 50 percent of mobile phones sold in 2012 were smart phones and number of internet mobile subscribers is a mammoth 381 million.

Apart from fixed line internet services, native Hindi internet users are also making great strides in the mobile and smart phone market. The smart phone market is unparalleled amongst the developing economies. It has grown to 12.8 units per 100 in the third quarter of 2013 and the market has grown by 229 percent year on year which is good news for vernacular search portals.

Many smart phone manufacturers in India have started offering Hindi as an optional language to access the device as well as to access the internet on phone. Dependence on mobiles and smart phones is uniformly increasing in rural India as an important point of access. The pre-disposition of humans to converse and seek information in their language of thought means the bulk of the vernacular language speaking population will actively seek content in a language they are inherently more familiar with.

India has become the epicenter of the small and medium business phenomenon. Current estimates show that there are approximately 8 million SMBs and almost 45 percent of India's exports are dependent on small businesses. Add to this a large number of people that find employment in professions like agriculture and government services. By and large, the applications that are most used by regional language users include emails, search engines and news content, text chat, matrimonial services and online banking services.

In rural areas, the report shows a bias in favor of sites offering government services, land records and private initiatives such as eChoupal, which provides aggregated information of interest to farmers and facilitates sale of farm produce. There is also a concentrated push by internet companies to encourage more women to get online with a number of media campaigns targeted at women on the anvil.

This will seem like just the tip of iceberg if in the future areas of exponential internet growth like ecommerce and social media advent into the vernacular domain. To make this advent of ecommerce and social media into vernacular domain a reality content aggregators and search engines with more refined and focused offerings are making the access to the content a lot easier for the vernacular user and it is these reasons that make this segment an exciting one to watch out for.

Source: CIOL

Android set to outscore Microsoft Windows

There will be 2.3 billion computers, tablets and smartphones using Android software by 2016, says Gartner.

Data research firm Gartner predicts that Google's Android operating system will be used on more computing devices than Microsoft's Windows within four years.

At the end of 2016, there will be 2.3 billion computers, tablets and smartphones using Android software, compared with 2.28 billion Windows devices, reveals the latest data by the research firm.

That compares to an expected 1.5 billion Windows devices by the end of this year, against 608 million using Android. Android, which reached the market only in 2008, has risen fast to be the dominant smartphone platform, controlling two-thirds of that market.

It has taken the No. 2 spot in the fast-growing tablet computer market.Android, which reached the market only in 2008, has risen fast to be the dominant smartphone platform, controlling two-thirds of that market. It has taken the no. 2 spot in the fast-growing tablet computer market.

The proliferation of the free software gives Google its edge on the search market - its key profit generator.Worldwide shipments of personal computers fell by over 8 percent in the third quarter, the steepest decline since 2001, as more consumers flock to increasingly powerful tablets and smartphones for more basic computing.

Microsoft's Windows has dominated the personal computer industry for decades, but the company has struggled to keep up with shift to wireless, and in smartphones its market share is around 3 percent.

Source: CIOL

How social media transformed newsrooms in 2013

NEW DELHI: From being a platform for making friends to a melting pot of views and opinions, social media has transformed the way newsrooms and news makers interacted with the world in 2013. And, with the exponential growth of affordable smart devices, this transition is set to expand further.

From the outrage following the December 2012 gangrape in India to the coronation of Pope Francis, paying tributes to Nelson Mandela, to "selfies" of Barrack Obama and James Camaron, the year saw social media push the boundaries of protests, mourning and self-promotion. Gone are the days when having a profile on Facebook was considered being socially active. The youth today is catching up with friends on Facebook, Twitter, BBM, Whatsapp and a plethora of apps from their PCs, mobile phones and tablets.

As this seamless mix of sociology and technology morphed into a powerful platform for public's engagement with the government, policy makers also logged on to gauge public views and looking for a stronger connect with the "aam aadmi". Analysts expect political parties in the country to make greater use of social media for their election campaigns to increase voter support, especially among the youth. The new year will see further expansion of this medium as companies making salt to software use this platform to advertise their products, services and connect with customers.

Advertisers are taking an integrated cross-channel approach across social media and traditional channels, while brands are turning to it for providing customer service and support. "In 2014, we expect more brands to recognize that digital is not a channel that is fitted into existing thinking, it needs a new way of thinking. Marketers are expected to invest more in data capabilities to understand the performance of their digital campaigns," SapientNitro Co-Global Deliver Lead and Sapient India MD Rajdeep Endow said.

However, the ever increasing rhetoric around surveillance and snooping of Internet, which left its indelible mark on companies and users, in 2013 forced tech firms like Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo and LinkedIn to beef up encryption to secure users' data. The issue of cyber snooping, thanks to Edward Snowden's revelations of surveillance of Internet users by governments, led to worldwide criticism and protests forcing tech firms to secure their web traffic in a bid to reassure their users.

It was a big year for social media, which saw Twitter going public, Snapchat rejecting a $3 billion offer from Facebook and hockey-stick type growth curve of messaging apps like Whatsapp and Line pushing advertisers to reach their target audiences via social networks on mobile devices.

Source: Times of india

Now, run your Google Android apps on Windows PC

BlueStacks releases software allowing consumers to run Android apps on Windows PC

Well, its a good news to all Android developers who want to test/run their Android applications on Windows based PC, Tablet or laptop.

BlueStacks has recently announced the alpha version of BlueStacks App Player for Windows PC, a free software download that allows users to quickly run their favorite Android apps on any Windows PC, tablet or laptop.

In addition, the apps can be run full screen providing a unique and new user experience.

With 56 per cent of smartphone consumers purchasing an Android device in the last three months, it's apparent that Android is rapidly becoming a preferred operating system, said a press release.

"The openness of Android is enabling innovation around the world. We are grateful to Google and others for their contributions. This is also a social equalizer in the US and countries like Brazil, India and China, where a large percentage of the population who can only afford smartphones can now enjoy and benefit from the ubiquity of apps on the Android platform," said Rosen Sharma, president and CEO of BlueStacks.

"We look forward to getting feedback from our users on the alpha release," he added.

The BlueStacks App Player now gives users one-click access to their favorite Android apps right on their Windows PC. Both Windows and Android users stand to benefit greatly from this capability.

The release further added that for application developers in the Android ecosystem, the BlueStacks App Player opens up a market of over a billion PC users. BlueStacks does not require any additional work on the part of developers and the apps run unmodified on the Windows PC.

Source: CIOL