Flipkart Beats Amazon In Terms Of Diwali Traffic

 The Indian e-commerce industry has already witnessed plenty of fireworks much before Diwali crackers have started bursting. As the online festive discount season draws to a close, it seems Flipkart is ahead of the rest in terms of traffic, in spite of the consumer backlash that it had to face on October 6.

The biggest rival for Flipkart, Amazon, which concluded its week-long Diwali Dhamaka on October 16, witnessed a 200 per cent (two-fold) jump in its traffic on the first day of the week long sale, the company said. For Flipkart, the growth in traffic was 10 times that of a normal day on October 6. Incidentally, traffic growth doesn't always translate into higher sales as one might not finally order a product after visiting the site. On actual sales, Flipkart said it had a GMV (gross merchandise value) of $100 million on the Big Billion Day (October 6). Given that Flipkart had achieved sales of $1 billion in annual GMV in 2013-14, its average daily sales last financial year should have been about $2.7 million. So, Flipkart recorded almost 40-times growth in sales on October 6, going by the numbers given by the company. Amazon does not share its GMV. 

Experts say that Flipkart as an Indian brand generates more expectations when it comes to deals and discounts. "They are seen as more street smart as a brand when compared to Amazon which is known internationally for quality service and consumer satisfaction rather than discounts," Santosh Desai, MD & CEO, Future Brands, had told this newspaper recently. However, many are also of the view that loyalty is rarely witnessed in online buying patterns and the cheapest deals would find the highest takers. And, Flipkart mostly offered deeper discounts than its rivals.

While the guerilla campaign over Diwali sales were primarily built by Flipkart and Amazon, Delhi-based Snapdeal turned out to be a smart gainer. Snapdeal not only gained positive reviews on social networking sites, it was also the top trending topic on Twitter on October 6.

It witnessed a 15-times growth in traffic on Flipart's Big Billion Day and announced sales worth Rs 1 crore a minute.

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Gartner Predicts Positive Modi Effect On e-India

Prime minister narendra Modi’s much-hailed ‘Digital India’ initiative, which earned a vote of confidence from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (who met the PM in early October) is expected to boost the government’s IT spending by 5 percent to $7.2 billion in 2015, estimates technology research firm Gartner.

A chunk of these expenses is expected to be incurred in the revving up of external IT services and telecommunications, the development of broadband and cloud-based initiatives, and the creation of digitally-governed smart cities across the country.

Anurag Gupta, research director, Gartner, said in a statement, “The delivery of a citizen-centric and transparent government is only possible through the extensive use of technology and by leveraging digital government.”

Gartner also identified the top strategic technology trends for 2015 in its report. It defines “strategic trends” as those that are likely to have a significant impact on an organisation for the next three years and have “a high potential for disruption of the business [for both end users and IT] and the need for a major investment”.

Gartner analyst David Cearley noted that “the merging of the real and virtual worlds, the advent of intelligence everywhere, and the technology impact of the digital business shift” will define tech in the coming year.

Some of the trends to watch out for are:

• Computing everywhere with the rise of handheld devices
• Rise of 3D printing
• Advanced analytics with every app becoming an ‘analytic app’
• Convergence of cloud and mobile computing
• Growth of ‘smart machines’ in which advanced algorithms will allow systems to understand their environment, learn for themselves, and act autonomously
• Advent of ‘web-scale IT’, a pattern of computing that delivers the capabilities of large cloud service providers within an enterprise IT setting
• Risk-based security and self-protection

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Rich List: Mumbai University Has More Billionaire Alumni Than MIT

 Who knew that Mumbai University would have produced more number of billionaires than some of the best universities in USA or UK. Wealth-X, in association with UBS, has released Billionaires census 2014, which reveals the top universities of the world that have shaped the maximum number of billionaires.

The Top 10 universities list is filled with American schools, other than the number 9 and 10 spot. Mumbai University features at the ninth place that has produced 12 billionaires. Surprisingly, Mumbai University has beaten New York University and MIT in the list. University of Pennsylvania leads the list with 25 billionaires with Harward in second place with 22.

Another startling fact that came to light from this list is that only one UK based school features in the list and no it is not oxford. London School of Economics is at number 10 that has prepared 11 billionaires. The top 20 list has only 4 outsiders, the rest are all universities from USA. The Russian Lomonosov Moscow State University is at number 11 and ETH Zurich is at number 20.

Interestingly, 35% of the 2,325 billionaires in the world have not obtained a tertiary-level degree. The Wealth-X and UBS study suggests that higher education is not a precondition to becoming a billionaire.

However, In India studies are considered as the most essential part of growing up. Each parent wants the child to grow up and become successful in their lives, hence education is very important if one wants to climb the success ladder. But, on the other side, if you look at some of the biggest names in the Billionaires arena, have not completed college. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg being the most prominent of them all.

Top 20 list of universities that produced the maximum billionaires:

1. UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA (UNITED STATES) — 25

2. HARVARD UNIVERSITY (UNITED STATES) — 22

3. YALE UNIVERSITY (UNITED STATES) — 20

4. UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA (UNITED STATES) — 16

5. PRINCETON UNIVERSITY (UNITED STATES) — 14

6. CORNELL UNIVERSITY (UNITED STATES) — 14

7. STANFORD UNIVERSITY (UNITED STATES) 14

8. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY (UNITED STATES) — 12

9. UNIVERSITY OF MUMBAI (INDIA) — 12

10. LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE (UNITED KINGDOM) — 11

11. LOMONOSOV MOSCOW STATE UNIVERSITY (RUSSIA) — 11

12. UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS (UNITED STATES) — 10

13. DARTMOUTH COLLEGE (UNITED STATES) — 10

14. UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN (UNITED STATES) — 10

15. NEW YORK UNIVERSITY (UNITED STATES) — 9

16. DUKE UNIVERSITY (UNITED STATES) — 9

17. COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY (UNITED STATES) — 8

18. BROWN UNIVERSITY (UNITED STATES) — 8

19. MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (UNITED STATES) — 7

20. ETH ZURICH SWITZERLAND — 6

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4G Rollout Is A Tough, Costly Job For Telecom Operators

 Network deployment for 4G LTE is a complex and expensive task for telecom operators, especially in emerging economies such as India which have low average-revenue-per user (ARPU), Jon Penrose, a US-based telecom industry consultant at Teradata said.

Deploying LTE networks in India and globally is a hugely complex and expensive task for mobile network operators. Enhanced capabilities and benefits like bandwidth-on-demand require complex go-to-market and customer management strategies, Penrose told ET.

Emerging competitive threats from Over-the-Top (OTT) applications and services threaten to further reduce already low ARPUs and continue to mount a sustained challenge to the long-term revenue generation potential of 4G services.

Penrose says that speed advantages are not very useful as a differentiating factor. "Network speeds cannot be guaranteed, and are usually temporary, highly regionalized, and easy for the competition to replicate and outside the operator's control".

Despite increasing hoopla around 4G, telcos are taking a very cautious approach as fully monetizing network investments involves launching compelling new applications and services while India lacks the ecosystem that include insufficiency of 4G-capable devices, experts say.

The prioritization of 4G-technology rollout would be towards the main metropolitan areas as it would be initially seen as a premium service.

Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio Infocomm and Sunil Mittal-driven Bharti Airtel are two serious 4G contenders in India.

Bharti Airtel has rolled out services based on TDD (Time-Division Duplex) LTE technology on 2,300 Mhz band in select cities. Jio, that got BWA spectrum in 2300MHz band in 2010, has said that it will commercially launch 4G services in 2015, a timeline which it needs to adhere to meet rollout obligations.

Penrose said that operators would be mindful of the significant role that pre-existing 2G and 3G technologies, particularly in areas where the limited return on investment opportunities make 4G rollout a less attractive proposition for the network operators.

"The availability of high-speed mobile data communication through 4G-LTE networks and capabilities will continue to be an essential enabler of India's ongoing economic development and growth," he added.

Many of the well-established 4G device providers are targeting lower-cost products specifically towards the Indian market as they seek to consolidate and expand their position within the rapidly developing space.

"Combined with the competition from Chinese and Taiwanese handset manufactures, and the rapidly developing market for home-grown 4G devices, it looks likely that the downward pressure on handset prices will continue for the foreseeable future," said Penrose.

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Cisco Chairman John Chambers Bullish On India

 Pinning hopes on the new NDA government, global tech major Cisco chairman John Chambers today said he is is quite bullish on India and expressed confidence that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will drive reforms and deliver.

"The change in government, I think Prime Minister Modi is going to be a great leader...I am extremely optimistic about this leadership change in India and the future of the country," he said at the Internet of Things (IoT) Conference here.

I see an openess to really make a difference, he said. The three-time Gujarat Chief Minister steered the BJP to a landslide victory in general elections, with the party winning an absolute majority in Parliament. It is the first time since 1984 that a single party has won a majority on its own.

Asked if there is perceived change in business confidence, he said, "most of the challenges that existed in India was self-inflicted. So I think you are going to see great economic opportunity and good environment for business if they execute right.

He expressed hope that India will accelerate growth to 7-8 per cent.

Among emerging markets, Chambers said he is betting most on India, adding, "I have been very public in my comments that emerging markets are going through some tough times."

Cisco has about 12,000 employees in India across cities like Bangalore, Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Pune and Hyderabad. Of these, 8,000 people are part of the R&D set up.

Although the company gets about 2 per cent of its over $48 billion global revenues from India, it is confident of this share growing.

It expects to garner 5 per cent of its revenues from the Indian market in the next five years with business targeted to grow over 20 per cent during the period.

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AMD Cutting 7 Percent of Jobs After Poor Q3

 The 700 or so layoffs come a week after Lisa Su takes over as CEO of the world's second-largest chip maker.

Advanced Micro Devices' restructuring will continue, with executives saying Oct. 16 that the chip maker will cut about 700 jobs.

The announcement from President and CEO Lisa Su came a week after AMD surprised the industry when Rory Read, who had led the company for more than three years, stepped down, giving way to Su in an amicable transition.

It also came as executives showed disappointing third-quarter financial numbers for the world's second-largest chip maker. AMD reported revenue of $1.43 billion, a 2 percent drop from the same period last year, and net income of 17 million, less than the $43 million it earned in the third quarter in 2013.

The company's Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom group, which also includes server chips, saw revenues grow 21 percent year over year. AMD's semi-custom systems-on-a-chip (SoC) business had helped boost the company back to profitability over the past year when Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo used the chips in their latest-generation gaming consoles.

The unit earned $108 million during the quarter, driven in large part by the semi-custom business. 

During a conference call with analysts and journalists, Su said AMD had at least two more design wins in the works involving semi-custom chips that will hit in 2016. She declined to say who the customers are, but indicated they were in new industries and will bring in about $3 billion over three years.

"We are diversifying the semi-custom business beyond gaming," Su said.

However, the Computing and Graphics unit—which comprises desktop and notebook processors, discrete GPUs and professional graphics—saw revenues fall 16 percent over the third quarter of 2013, fueled by weak notebook processor and chipset sales, according to officials. The unit lost $17 million in the quarter. Su said AMD expected the PC market to continue to be stronger in the commercial segment.

"When we look at consumer, it's still choppy," she said.

Her comments came two days after Intel executives said the PC business helped drive an 8 percent increase in sales for the company in the third quarter. CEO Brian Krzanich said commercial PC sales were strong, but that the consumer business was improving. He also said Intel had gained share on AMD.

AMD's PC business is tightly tied to the consumer space, although Su said the company is making strides in the commercial market.

The job cuts are the latest round of layoffs at AMD over the past several years as the chip maker has looked to transform its business, targeting growth markets such as ultraportable clients, dense servers, the embedded space and the semi-custom business and hoping to reduce its reliance on the PC market.

During the conference call, Su said the goal was to get the workforce—which in the third quarter was 10,149—to a level that better reflects the smaller businesses at AMD. A key goal was protecting the engineering and R&D areas, which the CEO said were key to AMD's transformation. Most of the cuts will be on the operations side, she said.

The job cuts, which will be complete by the end of the year, will save AMD about $9 million this year and $85 million in 2015.

"We know what we need to do to improve performance going forward, and are taking actions," she said.

AMD has been undergoing the transformation since Read came to AMD from Lenovo in 2011, with Su following a year later. The executive team underwent changes in June, when AMD reorganized into two business units and Su was promoted from senior vice president and general manager of AMD's Global Business Units to COO.

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Flipkart Looks To Restructure Team, Focus On Marketplace

 Flipkart, which adopted an online marketplace model in letter a year ago, has now set into motion actions to embrace it in spirit too.

Even after it technically became an online marketplace last year, a bulk of the goods sold on its site were through a former subsidiary, WS Retail. But India’s largest online retailer wants to change that and is taking steps through an internal restructuring to make its marketplace that serves as a platform for other merchants to sell their wares more effective.

This conscious embrace of the marketplace model will make it easier for the Bangalore-based company to achieve its target of having at least 10 times more merchants on its platform within a year. Flipkart had about 4,500 merchants earlier this year, much less than its rivals Snapdeal or Amazon.

“They want to make the marketplace more competitive and hence are giving it more teeth,” said one person who is directly involved with the process.

Flipkart did not respond to emailed queries. The company had started out as a direct retailer of products, but as regulations made it mandatory ecommerce firms with foreign ownership to operate a marketplace model, it opened up its platform to third-party sellers last year.

Flipkart had registered Flipkart Marketplace Pvt Ltd in 2012, but internally the marketplace team was just another vertical. Now that is set to change.

“A completely new structure is being created for marketplace and a team is being built for this. New hires for this will run into a few hundreds,” said another person, who works with Flipkart in an advisory capacity.

The company, which has about 14,000 employees, has earlier declared its intention to increase its headcount to over 25,000. Its marketplace head Ankit Nagori was promoted to senior vice president this year.

Experts said the move to be more aggressive on the marketplace front is a step in the right direction. “A stronger marketplace focus can give e-tailers an opportunity to attract more customers and a larger product base allows platforms to up sell and cross sell,” said Harish HV, partner at financial advisory firm Grant Thornton India.

One of the sources said “there is a de risking aspect as well,” in the move. “WS Retail is now completely owned by a different set of people and Flipkart has no legal control over it, so it makes sense to start leveraging other merchants on its platform,” said the person.

WS Retail accounts for as much as 80 per cent of Flipkart’s sales, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the company’s sales. Flipkart is targeting $3 billion (Rs 18,500 crore) in overall sales this fiscal, but has not revealed how much of this will come from WS Retail. Most of the products sold exclusively, such as Moto G phones, are also through WS Retail.

Flipkart has created a maze of complex legal structures for regulatory purposes, said a legal advisor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“It has a wholesale arm, a marketplace and has spun out what was earlier its subsidiary business-to-consumer company (WS Retail) into a completely different legal entity.”

Under Indian regulations, an online company with foreign investment cannot retail directly and can only offer a platform.

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Dedicated e-Store To Help Microsoft Harness India Market

 Microsoft is the latest to join ranks of big brands launching their e-commerce stores in India. The company could launch the site as early as November, said a person who is working on the project. Microsoft operates an international online store that ships to multiple countries. The site sells all Microsoft products from software like its Office suite to its Xbox in markets like the US. However, in India, it just offers its software downloads through the global site.

This will change once the India-focused site opens up. "They wanted to launch microsoftstore. in before Diwali but that is not going to happen. It will open up towards the end of November and will offer all the products of the company," said a person, who has knowledge of the plans. Last year, Microsoft launched an online flagship store on Chinese marketplace TMall. The company did not deny or confirm the development.

'We do not have anything to share at this stage," a company spokesperson said. A number of traditional retailers have recently launched their own e-tailing ventures.

The over eight-decade-old textile and apparel company Arvind Ltd launched customclothing site Creyate in August. It is set to launch a multi-brand online store next year. The Aditya Birla Group is also set to launch ecommerce businesses.

"The online channel has become too big for Microsoft to ignore. They know there might be cannibalisation of offline channel but they are willing to take that risk," said one of the people who briefed ETon the matter. Online retail sales accounts for just 0.4 per cent of the overall retail market. However, it is expected to account for 3 per cent of the overall market and reach $32 billion ( Rs 1.96 lakh crore) in size by 2020, according to retail advisory firm Technopak.

Experts said India's massive market ensures that there is enough space for both traditional brick-and-mortar retail and ecommerce. "Even if customers do research on the company's ecommerce site and then buy the product elsewhere, it is still win-win for the brand," said Pinakiranjan Mishra, partner and national leader (retail and consumer products) at consulting services firm EY. He said an own e-store will help brands provide better information and price transparency.

"If a brand has its own site, it directly gets valuable customer data," said Mishra. "On another online portal the customer data does not belong to the brand." Microsoft earned revenue of $86.83 billion (Rs 5.3 lakh crore) last fiscal.

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Amazon To Hire 80000 Seasonal Employees

 Amazon has said it would hire 80,000 seasonal employees in the United States to help with an expected flood of holiday sales. 

The figure is 10,000 more than Amazon announced last year. Amazon is adding employees in its warehouses and other centers that manage sales and deliveries, and noted that it offers "competitive hourly wages and a comprehensive benefits package." 

Some of these employees will be kept after the holiday season, Amazon said, noting that 10,000 of those hired for seasonal jobs last year were retained for permanent positions. 

"We're excited to be creating 80,000 seasonal jobs, thousands of which will lead to regular, full-time roles with benefits starting on day one and innovative programs like Career Choice for employees to further pursue their education," said Amazon vice president Mike Roth. 

Amazon now has more than 50 'fulfillment centers' which manage product deliveries in the United States and will have more than 15 sorting centers by the end of 2014. 

Amazon is also reportedly set to open physical brick-and-mortar stores in some cities for the first time, possibly as 'pop-up' locations that would operate only for a few weeks. 

The US National Retail Federation has said it expects a 4.1% rise in holiday shopping purchases this year.

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Bentley Mobile Phone: Want To Buy A Phone For £10700

 British business Vertu has launched a smartphone in collaboration with Bentley at the whopping price of £10,700 - the same as 20 new iPhones. What, exactly, do you get for your money?

Vertu was founded by Nokia as a fashion brand: the phones themselves are technologically average, but sold on their design and craftsmanship. Each is handmade by a single worker in the company's Hampshire headquarters. That person's signature is etched onto the inside of the back cover.

Internally, you'll get an Android smartphone with a 64GB memory and a 2.3GHz processor. Nothing that can't be matched by something like the Samsung Galaxy S5 for much less cash.

But on the outside you get - according to chief executive Massimiliano Pogliani - the "contemporary embodiment of English craftsmanship".

The phone, simply called "Vertu for Bentley", is swathed in quilted calf leather, in the classic Bentley shade of Newmarket Tan, and stitched with the same diamond pattern you would find on one of the seats in a Continental GT. The case is made of lightweight titanium, with diamond knurling like you'd find on the dashboard of certain models.

Cheap plastic phone this is not. It's well-built, even if not to everyone's tastes. Vertu's previous models have sold well in Russia, Asia and the Middle East.

You also get the Bentley name, of course; Vertu has signed a five-year partnership with the luxury car maker and this phone, designed by engineers at both companies, is the first product to emerge from it. That might be quite neat if you already drive a Bentley.

Each handset has a metal ‘B’ wings motif on the face of the handset. The complimentary case also depicts the Bentley logo, embossed on yet more Newmarket Tan calf leather.

But the real advantage of the phone is the concierge service that comes with it: this will allow owners to access a range of exclusive assistance, 24 hours a day. Want tickets to that sold-out show? A reservation at the hottest restaurant in town? Vertu’s staff will be able to help, they say.

They can even help buy gifts for friends or family and arrange “money-can’t-buy” events, whatever that means. You can either talk to the concierge on the phone or discretely send them a text chat from your seat on a private jet, yacht or boardroom conference table.

So, is it worth it? If you drive a Bentley, hate buying Christmas presents, have £10,700 to spend on a phone and really like calf leather, probably so. Personally, I'll be keeping my iPhone 5C until it gives up the ghost.

Specifications

Size: 145mm, 69mm, 10.65mm
Weight: 192g
Operating system: AndroidTM 4.4 (KitKat)
Processor: Qualcomm SnapdragonTM 801 2.3GHz quad-core
Screen: 4.7in, 1080p, 473dpi, protected by sapphire crystal
Cameras: 13 mega-pixel (rear), 2.1 mega-pixel (front)
Memory: 64GB internal
Battery: 2,275mAh Li-ion (up to 15hrs 30mins talk time)
Accessories: leather case, headphones, polishing cloth

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Tech Workers Ask Appeals Court To Reject Apple, Google Bid

 Employees suing Apple , Google and two other tech companies over hiring practices said an appeals court should not approve a $324.5 million settlement in the case, according to a court filing on Tuesday.

Plaintiff workers accused Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe in a 2011 lawsuit of conspiring to avoid poaching each other's employees. The companies agreed to a $324.5 million settlement earlier this year.

US District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California then rejected the proposed class action settlement, saying the amount was too low. The companies appealed last month, saying she committed "clear legal error."

In the filing on Tuesday, the workers said that although they believed the $324.5 million deal originally warranted approval, the judge had the proper authority to reject it and they would "defer to (Koh's) sound judgment about how best to oversee this litigation."

An Intel spokesman declined to comment, as did an Apple spokeswoman. Representatives for Google and Adobe could not immediately be reached.

Tech employees alleged that the conspiracy limited their job mobility and, as a result, kept a lid on salaries.

The case has been closely watched because of the possibility of big damages being awarded and for the opportunity of a glimpse into the world of some of the United States' elite tech firms.

Plaintiffs based their allegations of conspiracy largely on emails circulated among Apple's late co-founder Steve Jobs, former Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt, and some of their rivals.

In rejecting the proposed settlement, Koh repeatedly referred to a related deal last year involving Disney and Intuit. Apple and Google workers got proportionally less in the latest agreement compared with the one involving Disney, Koh wrote.

To match the earlier settlement, the latest deal "would need to total at least $380 million," Koh wrote.

In the filing on Tuesday, the plaintiffs argued that the $324.5 million deal "ceased to exist" the moment Koh rejected it, by virtue of the settlement terms negotiated by both sides. The companies "should not complain about this state of affairs, given that it is their own doing," attorneys for the employees wrote.

The case is In Re: High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation, US District Court, Northern District of California 11-cv-2509.

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Placement Season: Startups To Hire Most Freshers From IITs

 Flush with a record billion-dollars-plus raised during the first nine months of this year, dozens of startups are making a beeline for IIT placement season set to kick off in December this year. 

Already, the number of startups who have enrolled for the campus placement season this year has doubled or trebled at many IITs, according to campus sources. 

For example, IIT Madras which had only seven startups last year, expects at least 30 to come calling this year. "Over 14 startups have already registered, out of which 11 will hire exclusively from us," Vishranth Suresh, academic affairs secretary, IIT Madras, said. Similarly, at IIT Kanpur, 35 startups have already registered for this placement season, with the final tally expected to cross 45. Only 24 visited the campus last year. 

The presence of such a large number of cash-rich startups will cause a fierce talent war with well-known recruiters like Google, Oracle, Samsung, Schlumberger and Goldman Sachs for the best among the 9,000-plus students who will graduate from 16 IITs next year. Many startups are first-timers at the IIT placements. Two-to-four-year-old companies are offering Rs 12-15 lakh pay packages, on a par with salaries offered by core companies and IT firms, a placement coordinator at one of the older IITs said.

Campus and industry sources believe startups could upstage larger companies. "Startups are the ones providing problem-solving opportunities that can have an immediate impact to students early on in their career," Sandeep Murthy, partner at venture capital firm Lightbox Ventures, said. 

"Till a couple of years ago, the pecking order for an IIT student was an MNC, then a product development company and finally, an IT firm. Now, because of the job exposure, competitive salary and challenging work environment, startups are on a par with MNCs," Sharad Sharma, angel investor and co-founder of iSpirt, a think tank for software product companies, added. 

Students know MNCs consider a startup work experience favourably should they switch jobs later. 

Zomato, Myntra, Wooqer, Housing. com, TinyOwl, Gram Power, Monraft, Browser Stack, Maxheap Technologies (Commonfloor), Rays Power Experts, Olacabs, Continuum Energy, Indus Insights, Red Bus and Hike are among the startups that have registered so far. Many of these have IIT alumni as founders or cofounders and recruiting from alma mater is part of their strategy. 

"A major chunk of the recent startups are either tech-based or have an analytics-related work profile, and hence, engineering colleges seem to be the first choice," Mohak Mehta, placement manager for the placement cell of IIT Bombay, said. 

"The 60 core firms are staple, but 30 startups will be the real gamechangers," said a senior placement team member of IIT Roorkee. From 15 new-age companies last year, this IIT plans to get 35 this year, while 22 have already registered. 

"There has been a huge increase in student interest in joining startups," Aditya Jain, a fourth-year student of IIT Kanpur, who is also part of the placement team, said. "These startups provide a really good learning opportunity across domains; and in particular, serve as a great learning ground for those interested in launching their own ventures. It's good exposure and since many startups are scaling up so fast, the growth opportunity is that much more," he added. 

Flipkart, one of the largest recruiters from campus last year, has registered itself under category of 'Private IT Company' in some of the IITs rather than as a startup. 

"We expect to hire 50-100 people in the next six months, mostly on campus," Saurabh Sharma, cofounder and CEO of Gurgaon based Big Data firm Indus Insights, a five-year-old firm, said. 

In the first nine months of this year, 189 early-stage deals worth Rs 6,764 crore were struck. This is significantly higher than the deal flow for all of 2013, when there were 179 deals worth Rs 3,900 crore. All the money raised will come in handy as ammunition in the war for IIT talent this placement season 

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100 Ex-Infosys Respond To Sikkas Call, To Join Company Again

 More than 100 former Infosys executives are returning to the company, heeding new CEO Vishal Sikka's call to them to rejoin the one-time software industry bellwether in what could be a big confidence booster in its efforts to attract fresh talent and prevent existing employees from jumping ship.

Once an employer of choice in India, Infosys steadily lost that status in the past couple of years, hemorrhaged talent, including at senior levels, and left it with industry-leading attrition levels that has seen almost one in five employees leave the company.

After Sikka took charge of Infosys on August 1, one of his first actions was to issue an open call to former Infosys employees to come back to the company. In an email titled "A new beginning", Sikka urged former employees to consider joining back, saying: "Our focus on finding new, exciting ways of working together has never been stronger. I have often heard it said that once an Infoscion, always an Infoscion. Friend, you stand testimony to this fact, and I know I can look forward to our continued association and your support as an ambassador for Infosys."

That plea has since started yielding results, with the number of returnees, which stood in the low teens on average in the last 12 months, now steadily rising. Infosys has long had a programme called "Green Channel" to woo back former employees into the company, but this time around special care is being put to make their return smooth.

"There has been an overwhelmingly positive response to the messages that have gone out to former Infoscions," confirmed Srikantan Moorthy, executive vicepresident and head of human resources at Infosys. "I don't have a definitive number because these are all people that apply for a position and then we look through and see how many have applied that were former Infoscions. But I can definitely say it will be more than 100." He did not share details about the levels or roles at which people were returning or whether these included some high profile names.

This will be a shot in the arm for Sikka, who, in his first interview to ET since taking charge, had listed managing Infosys' high attrition levels as one of his main short-term challenges alongside reviving growth. For the quarter to end-September, attrition stood at 20.1 per cent or one in five employees had left the company. Return of former employees will be perceived as a sign of renewed confidence in the company, and help Sikka and his executive team to attract talent in their attempts at rebuilding Infosys.

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Indian Firms See Foreign Grads As More Job Ready

 Employers in India believe foreign university graduates have better technical skills for jobs, according to the India Employability report unveiled by The British Council.

The research surveyed 200 foreign and Indian companies on ascertaining the attractiveness of Indian and foreign university graduates for jobs on parameters such as skill-sets, availability and quality of talent pool. It revealed that 39 per cent of the respondents deemed far more graduates from foreign universities as better prepared for the job than those from Indian universities, perceiving them to require lesser extensive training, according to 14 per cent of employers.

Rob Lynes, director of the British Council spoke to Anumeha Chaturvedi about the findings.

Please explain the key findings.

This report is looking at employability of Indians in general. It is about what young people need to do to get jobs. The report looked at particularly those who studied in India or overseas and tried to assess whether the latter have an added advantage. With 200 respondents, it’s not a huge corpus to look at, but what the report does say is that some employers feel those who have studied overseas are better prepared for the job market. And this could be attributed to exposure, critical thinking abilities and better understanding of business concepts. These were employers who hired students with overseas experience. I guess it doesn’t make them better employees but gives them something extra. Even in the UK, we encourage people to get some exposure overseas. This is the first time we have looked at elements like employability in context of the Indian market.

What are the concerns regarding overseas education?

Higher education is becoming more transactional in nature. There are various courses and campuses education programmes and we hope that in future, there are more opportunities for such programmes for UK universities in India, so students don’t have to go overseas for foreign education. At the moment, it’s difficult in India. Massive Open Online Courses is another area if institutions have to reach out to large numbers. But, the catch there is quality. How do institutions accredit and certify certain courses? These are challenges institutions are going to face.

How are training interventions for institutions and companies panning out in India?

Soft skills are critical communication presentation skills, and these are essential for any job. Students may be academically brilliant but if you cannot communicate and engage you’ll find it difficult to survive. The British Council works broadly with 12 states in India. We train the trainers to teach language. We’ve had tie-ups with companies and higher institutions looking at soft skills training. There is a demand for that in India.

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Qualcomm To Make A $2.5Bn Bet On Bluetooth With CSR Buy

Qualcomm will buy one of the most venerable British technology companies, the chip design firm CSR, once known as Cambridge Silicon Radio.

CSR was one of the pioneers in Bluetooth technology, and these days – having sold off its mobile business to Samsung a couple years back – it is again concentrating on the technology, in particular Bluetooth LE/Smart, the low-power variant designed for connecting internet of things devices.

The company recently rejected a takeover bid, rumored to be worth as much as $3 billion, from U.S. firm Microchip, on the basis that the price was insufficient.Qualcomm said late Tuesday that it will pay around $2.5 billion for CSR, so perhaps those rumors were somewhat overenthusiastic.

Qualcomm said the buy will give it more “products, channels and customers” in the internet of things — an area where it is already intensely active — and in automotive infotainment, another focal point for CSR, which also produces in-car connectivity, audio and navigation products. One area of likely interest will be the CSRMesh protocol that allows Bluetooth Smart/LE devices to relay messages between themselves (Zuli is also playing around with this idea).

The purchase is expected to close in the summer of next year, and marks the continued evolution of Qualcomm from a chipmaker focused on licensed radio technology for carriers to an essential technology component of our wireless-yet-connected way of life today. Back in 2011, when it purchased Wi-Fi chip maker Atheros, my colleague Stacey Higginbotham explained that Qualcomm had ambitious goals to build technology that lets end devices travel seamlessly across all of the popular radio networks, and with this deal it gets the silicon expertise to bring Bluetooth into that vision. We can ask Murthy Renduchintala, EVP of Qualcomm Technologies and co-president of Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, for more about the deal and Bluetooth’s place in the internet of things at our Structure Connect event next week in San Francisco.

CSR’s directors say they consider the terms of the acquisition to be “fair and reasonable.” Here’s what chairman Ron Mackintosh said:

While the CSR Directors believe that CSR is now strongly positioned to execute its strategy of delivering growth and sustainable returns in the medium and long term, we believe that the offer from Qualcomm provides CSR Shareholders with an immediate and certain value which is highly attractive. The CSR Directors believe the Acquisition recognises CSR’s long term prospects and growth potential, and takes into account the dynamics of the global market and the competitive landscape in which it operates.

CSR was founded in 1998. It came out of the so-called Silicon Fen — the Cambridge hub (the U.K.’s most interesting real tech hub) that also spawned chip design titan ARM. 

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Facebook Challenging Google In Online Advertising Market

  For years, Google has been the undisputed leader in online advertising, but Facebook is gaining quickly in the fast-evolving market.

Google is still collecting about a third of the $140 billion Internet ad market in 2014, but Facebook's share has doubled over the past two years to nearly eight per cent, according research firm eMarketer.

And Facebook, which is able to leverage its huge membership of 1.3 billion people around the world, is not stopping there.

Earlier this month, Facebook unveiled its "Audience Network" that mines what it knows about users to target ads in other applications on smartphones or tablet computers.

Audience Network expands the social network's ad platform beyond its borders on the vast landscape of mobile apps and could provide a major boost to Facebook revenue.

The battle is particularly intense in the fast-growing mobile ad segment: Google's share has dipped slightly over the past two years to 44.6 per cent while Facebook has grabbed 20 per cent of those revenues worldwide, up from just 5.9 per cent in 2012, according to eMarketer.

The world's biggest social network is particularly well-equipped to deliver "targeted" ads that aim to be relevant, based on the browsing history of each users, in part by using the "Facebook login" feature for many websites and services.

"Because of that Facebook login, they can track people across devices and understand their behavior," said eMarketer's Cathie Boyle.

"Now they're letting advertisers leverage that information beyond just ads on Facebook, which plays to challenging Google."

While privacy activists object to so-called behavioral marketing, this type of advertising is generally seen as effective because it makes more efficient use of ads.

Tech firms are starting to learn this, and find ways to track behavior as users switch from their PCs to tablets or smartphones.

"One of the biggest challenges for advertisers for the rise of mobile is not only technical things, it's really understanding how people use the devices together," Boyle said.

"You have to think about multiple devices. People are not necessarily giving up any of these devices, they are splitting their time between more and more."

The login system used by both Facebook and Google have become more important as more people use ad blocking technologies or "private browsing" which prevents marketers from using Web histories.

"Facebook and Google have the same competitive advantage in the landscape, they have the unique login that can be used to identify the user across different devices," said Jennifer Wise at Forrester Research.

"They both have the ability to do it, but Facebook acted on it first. We're expecting Google to make some announcement in the near future of some kind of ad network that is going to do cross-devices targeting."

Google took the first step in that direction in early October, unveiling a tool that allows marketers to determine when an ad delivered on one platform results in a purchase on another.

Google and Facebook are not the only companies using these techniques. Wise said rival firms, such asTwitter and online radio Pandora, also can monitor the activity of its users for marketing. Other such as Apple have the capacity to do so through its login feature.

The online ad market is evolving quickly, and it's not clear yet how new connected devices such as smartwatches or eyewear will impact the ad landscape.

Twitter has seen ad revenues grow at a rapid pace in the past two years, but it still holds less than one per cent of the market, behind rivals like Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL.

According to Boyle, it's not clear if any rival can challenge Google on "search advertising," the system which uses keywords for search queries to deliver ads related to those searches.

Because Google is overwhelmingly dominant as a search engine, it logically controls most of the ad search market as well.

But the ad market could face a shakeup from Amazon, which according to The Wall Street Journal is working on its own advertising platform.

Although Amazon's market share is less than one per cent, it has the capacity to mount a major challenge. Says Boyle: "Their understanding of shopping behavior is really unique."

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