IBM launches new Email service Verse

Last week IBM launched its new e-mail application for business that integrates social media and analytics to help organizations and employees increase productivity. The new email ‘IBM Verse’, which is a part of company’s strategy to shift from hardware services to cloud computing and data analytics, is the first application to come out from company‘s USD 100 Million investment in design innovation.

It is the first messaging system to feature ‘faceted search’. Adding this will enable users to pinpoint and retrieve specific information they are seeking across all the various types of content within their email. Verse uses built-in analytics to provide an ‘at a glance’ view that intelligently surfaces an individual’s most critical actions for the day. Over time, it can provide instant context about a given project as well as the people and teams collaborating on it.

IBM verse gives enterprise customers, small businesses, and individuals a scalable, cloud based social collaboration environment optimized for mobile and web environments. The company has currently launched the beta version, while a freemium version – a model where basic version is free while features that are more elaborate need to be purchased will be available from the first quarter of next year.

IBM presently has 30,000 active support customers globally for its enterprise mail service named Notes. IT industry analysts estimate that 108 Billion work emails are sent daily, requiring employees to check their inboxes an average of 36 times an hour. It is also estimated that only 14% of those emails are of critical importance. Email will remain the single most widely used collaboration tool, with worldwide revenue for enterprise email expected to reach USD 4.7 Billion in 2017.

Future Group acquires Nilgiris

Nilgiris is a supermarket chain in South India. It is also one of the oldest supermarket chains in India with origins dating back to 1905 and hence its products are sold under the brand name of ‘Nilgiris 1905’. Unlike all other supermarkets and grocery shops in India, Nilgiris sells its own products among other brands. Kishore Biyani Future Group acquires the iconic brand. Future Consumer Enterprise Ltd., the food and FMCG arm of the Future Group, paid around Rs.300 crore for the acquisition.

Nilgiris operates a franchisee operated convenience store chain with 140 stores in key metros across the four states. Private equity firm Actis had bought 67 percent stake in Nilgiris in 2006. Apart from a wide assortment of products sold through its convenience store chain, Nilgiris also owns a portfolio brands in dairy, bakery, chocolates, and staples along with their manufacturing facilities in Bengaluru.

Bangalore based Nilgiris is an iconic brand that enjoys wide household recall in the southern states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Kerala. This acquisition is synergistic as it enables strengthening and expanding of convenience stores through franchise model is an asset light model. It brings in new manufacturing capabilities and brands within the company as well.

Existing portfolio of brands of FCEL including Sunkist, Tasty Treat, Golden Harvest, Premium Harvest, Sach Ektaa, CleanMate, and CareMate, will be channelized through Nilgiris store network. It operates 8 distribution centres along with a fleet of vehicles, including refrigerated vehicles that cater to the supply of its own dairy, bakery, and chocolates brands to its network of stores. FCEL is a part of Future group that operates modern retail network in 102 cities and 40 rural locations through retail brands like Big Bazaar, Central, Foodhall, Brand Factory, among others as well as various consumer goods, logistics networks and infrastructure for the consumption sector in India. 

Tech Mahindra buys Lightbridge Communications Corporation

Tech Mahindra is an Indian Multinational provider of Information Technology, networking technology solutions, and Business Support Services to the telecommunications Industry. It is a part of Mahindra Group. In recent news, the company acquires US based network solutions company Lightbridge Communications corporations for $240 Million.

This is the biggest deal of company outside India, will significantly strengthen its presence in the US, and is expected to add 20-30 more clients in the list. The deal will be finalized by the end of this fiscal and is funding the acquisition via internal accruals. Mahindra group looks to reach its stretch target of $5 Billion in revenue by 2015.

Headquartered in McLean, Virginia, LCC is one of the world’s largest independent global providers of network engineering services to the telecommunications industry, with more than 5000 employees in over 50 countries. With annual revenue of more than $400 Million, LCC has built 350 networks and designed more than 350,000 cell sites for over 400 customers worldwide. The acquisition positions Tech Mahindra as an important partner for network services globally.

This is the largest acquisition so far in this year in the IT services space. In July, India’s third largest software services firm WIPRO had acquired the IT services division of Canadian company Atco for US $195 Million. In September this year, Cognizant said it will acquire US based Trizetto Corporation for US $2.7 Billion in an all cash deal.

Rajendra Singh started LCC in 1983. With its acquisition, Tech Mahindra will become the only Indian IT services provider in the networking services management space, which is dominated by the like of Alcatel Lucent and Ericsson. In April 2013, Tech Mahindra had acquired the lab assets and operations of the Type Approval Lab, which was part of Sony Mobile Communication’s internal test function. 

Berkshire Hathaway Buys Duracell

Berkshire Hathaway is an American Multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in United States. Company overseas and manages a number of subsidiary companies. The company is known for its control by investor Warren Buffet. In recent news, Berkshire Hathaway is buying the Duracell battery business from Procter and Gamble Co. in a deal valued at approximately $3 Billion.

P&G, the world’s largest consumer products maker, had announced last month that it wanted to make Duracell a standalone company. P&G, which acquired Duracell in 2005, said at the time that it preferred a spinoff of Duracell, but it was the considering a sale or other options. P&G will receive shares of its own stock that are currently held by Berkshire Hathaway. Those shares are currently valued at $4.7 Billion. Offsetting part of that price, P&G will contribute about $1.7 Billion to the Duracell business before the deal closes.

P&G whose products include Tide detergent and Pampers diapers, has been trimming its product lineup to focus on its top performers. After it finishes jettisoning more than half of its brands around the globe over the next year or two, P&G has said that it will be left with about 70 to 80 brands. Berkshire has a significant P&G shareholder since the consumer products firm acquired Gillette in 2005, but the Duracell acquisition will use nearly all of Berkshire 52.48 Million shares.

Duracell, whose batteries are known for their copper-colored tops, gives Buffet a familiar name to add to Berkshire’s stable of more than 80 businesses, including Benjamin Moore paint, the Diary Queen ice cream chain, and Heinz ketchup. While Duracell has more than one-fourth of the global market for batteries, demand has slackened amid the growth in smartphones and other devices that rely on rechargeable power sources. 

IBM to support online startups

The International Business Machine is an American multinational consulting and technology corporation. IBM manufactures and markets computer hardware and software, and offers infrastructure, hosting, and consulting services in areas ranging from mainframe computers to technology. It was founded 103 years ago in New York. IBM now joined the bandwagon by announcing a similar programme to give startups and entrepreneurs around the world up to $1, 20,000 worth of credits to use its cloud computing technology and take advantage of its global network of enterprise clients, consultants, and innovation centres.

IBM has launched BlueMix in India. It is a free platform for startups to develop and host mobile applications within minutes. Google, MS, and Amazon are rapidly growing online startup community in India and across the globe by offering free software credits, mentorship, marketing support, investor introduction, and even funding.

IBM BlueMix will add to the already growing ecosystem of the platforms like Microsoft Azure, Google App Engine, Citrix Xen App Environment, Sales Force Heroku, and Amazon Elastic Bean Stalk all of which are being pushed by corporations through their startup accelerators and entrepreneurship program to Indian Developers. Entrepreneurs will get access to IBM cloud infrastructure from SoftLayer, one of its subsidiaries, and its cloud platform called BlueMix for app development.

As part of programme called 10,000 startups launched by software lobby Nasscom in March 2013, Google offers up to $20,000 total credits for its Google cloud platform. Startups can use Google apps for six months. Microsoft offers Azure Credits, and BizSpark subscribers are eligible to a $150 monthly amount of cloud computing resources through Microsoft developer network subscription benefits, free from the Windows Azure Platform. While these announcements are good for startups, they caution the use of cloud to the technology solutions or platforms of the companies that offer them.

Amazon acquired Rooftop Media

Rooftop Media records and licenses the digital rights for comedians’ sets at comedy clubs across the USA. The company currently has partnerships with Apple and Yahoo and works with streaming services including Sirius XM, Pandora, and Spotify. Recently, Amazon had struck a deal to acquire Rooftop Media, as online comedic content service that it believes will help it enter new categories, as it competes against fast-rising competition from streaming media such as Netflix Inc.

San Francisco based Rooftop Media produces video and audio content related to stand up comedy, funny short films, and sketch comedy shows, which are then licensed to media and marketing companies to be put online for live broadcast, or made available on demand. Audible is an online audio book service acquired by Amazon in 2008 for almost $300 Million. All of Rooftop content will now be transferred to Audible, which already has more than 170,000 titles available online.

Amazon vision is to make the company a tech and media behemoth. Amazon is competing with competitors head to head in all countries. This year Amazon acquired Twitch, on online gaming platform. Over the past few years, Amazon has stepped out of its conventional retail business and created its very own smartphones, tablets, and set top TV boxes to boost digital content sales. Amazon also launched a new device known as the Fire TV Stick. It is claimed to be powerful streaming media stick in the market. It will compete with Google new Chromecast device.

In India, Amazon is in talk to acquire Fashion Portal Jabong to compete with Flipkart, who acquired Myntra this year. Amazon is also in talks to buy a minority stake in gift card technology and retail firm QwikCilver Solutions. It provides backend technology for the gift card business of several retailers including Shoppers Stop, Lifestyle, and Croma.  

American Burger Chain Carl Jr to enter India

Carl Jr is an American Based Fast food restaurant chain, operates in Western and Southwestern states. As of 2013, it started expanding in Canada, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Rico, Malaysia, Denmark, New Zealand, Singapore, Russia, Vietnam, Thailand, UK, and China. Carl Karcher is the founder of this chain and started operation in 1941. It is in the top ten fast food chains in the United States after Subway, McDonald’s, KFC, Burger King, Wendy, Taco Bell, Popeyes, and Church Chicken.

In April 2015, Indians will have choice to taste charbroiled burgers by Carl Jr. This brand has been endorsed by the like of Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, and Padma Lakshmi. The American fast food chain has already signed a franchise agreement with city based Cybiz BrightStar Restaurants Pvt Ltd, owned by CybizCorp. Over the next five years, there would be at least 100 Carl Jr outlets in India. The chain targets to open about 1,000 outlets across India over 10-15 years.

Carl Jr joins the race with the world’s largest burger chain Burger King, which had formed a joint venture with private equity fund Everstone Capital last year to develop its presence in India and plans to open the first outlet in India on 9 November 2014. The chain would spend $25 Million in the first five years in developing a presence in India. CKE Restaurant Holdings, the parent company of Carl Jr had already invested $1.5 Million in India in Consumer Research, product development and tasting trials during the past three years.

In a recent report, it is noted that Indian Food service market will soar to $92 Billion by 2020 from $48 Billion. Of this, the $3 Billion chained restaurant segment is expected to see the fastest growth rate of 15 percent, with the size pegged to touch $8 Billion by 2020. 

Microsoft team up with Dropbox

Dropbox provide services in storing data on the cloud and Microsoft also provide cloud-computing services. Although, both are competitors of each other but they collaborated to provide services. This will allow users to access Dropbox directly from Office apps and edit office files from the Dropbox app. Dropbox is home to over 35 Billion office documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.

The deal has four main parts: Quickly editing Office docs from the Dropbox mobile app, accessing Dropbox docs from Office apps, sharing Dropbox links of Office apps, and the creation of first party Dropbox apps for Microsoft’s mobile offerings. The capabilities will first roll out on Dropbox and Office apps for iOS and Android Tablets and will be available on the web next year. Dropbox will also make its application available on the windows Phone and Windows tablets in coming months.

The joint venture brings Dropbox the credibility in the enterprise that it has been fighting for in recent months, while smoothing the sharp edges on Microsoft’s public image, proving that the Redmond based firm can play nicely with others. In early 2015, the integration will also extend to the two services web apps, and to the newly announced Dropbox for Windows Phone app. Dropbox has 300 Million users, out of which 70% are international, and a ton of them use Dropbox to get work done.

For Dropbox, the deal fits with its goal of attracting customers that are more corporate. The online storage power updated its business services in April and has sought to allay any security concerns by companies that block Dropbox from their networks for fear of any sensitive documents or information leaking out. In September, Dropbox announced another partnership, this time with Google itself, aiming to make security tech easier to use. The two firms created simply secure, which has the mandate to improve adoption rates of security tools such as two-factor authentication in the wake of the Snowden Revelations.

Binatone acquire Gecko Maker Connovate

Binatone communications Group is a Hong Kong based consumer electronics and Personal Care Products Company. Connovate Technologies is a Bangalore based startup company and the maker of Gecko device. Gecko is a Bluetooth device. Recently, Binatone has acquired Connovate Technology for an undisclosed amount.

After this deal, Connovate will merge with Binatone subsidiary Hubble connected and will get access to the 1500 stores in United States and 1000 in Europe that Binatone has a presence in. Gecko will be bundled with home, pet, and baby monitoring solutions that Binatone sells under Motorola brand. Connovate becomes the first Indian Startup to have an exit in the inter of things domain, a technology that represents a truly connected world where all devices talk to one another.

Last year, in November Connovate had raised $135,410 through the crowd-funding platform Indiegogo. At the time, it had also received pre-orders for 7500 devices, mostly from US, UK, and Germany, including 500 from India. Gecko allows people to control and spot various objects around them using a smartphone. Besides tracking, the device can also be used to trigger a camera, change music using gestures, motion detection, and smart leash.

Connovate other product is Weight Smart, which is quite similar to FItbit Aria except that it uses Bluetooth instead of Wi-Fi. The device comes with its own custom app using which a person can log weight and even connected to Run Keeper to create some actionable information from it. Gecko is a coin-size, square shaped device that connects with the smartphone via Bluetooth and allows users to control multiple things such as household items and electronic appliances through the smartphone.

Foreign companies are looking for acquiring startups in India to grow their business. Yahoo had acquired Bookpad a US based startup with operation in Bangalore. Facebook acquired Little Eye Labs Pvt. Ltd. in January. Google acquired Impermium, and Naspers Ltd. acquired online bus ticketing company RedBus in 2013.

Lenovo acquired Motorola from Google

In January this year, Lenovo announced it was going to buy Motorola Mobility business this year from Google. Now this deal is signed, Lenovo acquired Motorola from Google in $2.91 Billion. While Motorola is now a Lenovo Company, the brand will remain a subsidiary based out of Chicago. Google bought Motorola in 2012 for $12.5 Billion, at the time stating that it was interested in its patent portfolio. Now, Google maintains most of the patents and passes on the handset business to Lenovo.

Motorola Mobility, a Google company, creates mobile devices and wireless accessories that simplify, connect and enrich people lives. The acquisition of such an iconic brand, innovate product portfolio and incredibly talented global team will immediately make Lenovo a strong global competitor in smartphones. This deal made Lenovo the world’s third bestselling smartphone maker after Apple and Samsung.

Lenovo is the world’s bestselling PC maker, a position it attained after the takeover of IBM’s personal computer business in 2005. Its smartphones are already selling in Asia and the Middle East, but they have not been sold in North America and Western Europe. Lenovo and Motorola together form the third largest smartphone player worldwide, pushing rival Xiaomi from the No 3 position to No 4, according to date from IDC.

IDC worldwide smartphone data showed Samsung leading with 23.8%, followed by Apple with 12%, Xiaomi with 5.3%, and Lenovo following closely with 5.2%, and LG with 5.1%. Lenovo has a very good business in India through the offline channel and Motorola is present only on line. Since its resurrection early this year, Motorola has sold more than two million smartphones, including the Moto G, Moto X, and Moto E. The Motorola-Lenovo combine intends to sell about 100 Million smartphones and tablets globally by the end of march next year, while Lenovo aims to bring Motorola back to profitability within four to six quarters.

Motorola will operate their Motorola solutions as a separate business and is not a part of acquisitions. Motorola business formally split in 2011.