Amazon acquires Twitch

Twitch is a startup best known for Twitch.tv, a live streaming platform that lets people stream their favorite video games. It was introduced in June 2011 as a spinoff of fellow streaming platform Justin.tv. The site primarily focuses on video gaming, including playthroughs of video games by users, along with broadcasts of e-sports competitions. Content on the site can be viewed either live or on demand basis.

In the recent news, Amazon acquired Twitch in $970 Million. This acquisition shows Amazon opportunity for the company to show its belief in the future of gaming. Amazon created an in-house gaming studio in 2012 and created a few Facebook and mobile games since then. Amazon is also the top video game vendor in the world. Amazon’s rising prominence as a video game vendor provides a powerful incentive for the company to better integrate itself into gaming culture and promote itself in services commonly used by gamers.

The Twitch acquisition is the latest in a series of commitments that Amazon has made to the gaming world. Amazon powers plenty of game makers through its Amazon Web Service Cloud Computing services, and promises mobile developers easy ways to make more money. Amazon decide to make its own original games and launched Amazon game Studios to create mobile games. In 2011, Twitch gained popularity when it really took off when it struck deals with Microsoft and Sony to power live streaming on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles.

Twitch makes money by letting users place ads before a stream plays or through subscription. While it is popular video sharing site YouTube but it has more popularity then Google service facility. Google was also said to be vying for Twitch, but the deal fall apart because the tech giant wanted more control over Twitch. But eventually, Amazon may use the channel to bolster its advertising dollars by controlling what ads appear before Twitch videos, or add premium content.

Flipkart Joins hands with Textile Ministry

Online retailer Flipkart is all set to provide an Online marketing platform to handloom weavers in the country. The Ministry of Textiles signed a MoU with Flipkart to provide online marketing platform to handloom weavers. It will be an Endeavour to boost the handloom sector, empower weaver and boost manufacturing in the country.

This step in textile industry will eliminate the intermediary and nobody is compelled to sell to a particular agency. The focus of this association is to help weavers and weaver entrepreneur to produce products in tune with the customer requirements and grow them significantly so that they may produce goods to become manufacturer not only at a local but also at national level. For this, Flipkart will provide weavers in India an Online platform, infrastructural support in data analytics and customer acquisition to help them get remunerative prices for their products and scale up their business.

Flipkart will charge weavers a 3 to 4 percent commission on sale. There will be no listing charge. If the sale happens then customer will have to pay 3 to 4 percent commission on sale. However, Flipkart will charge 15 percent commission from the readymade garments suppliers. This kind of coordination and effort has been planned for the first time and it will bridge the missing linkages of the market intelligence, market access, and logistics.

The weavers will sell their products under their brand name and evolve as an entrepreneur selling his products directly to buyers across the country without stepping out of their workplace. This will help them plan their production, inventory, and expand their business. Flipkart will expand this program in 3 to 6 months. For this initiative, the first event is in September in Varanasi where Flipkart will invite weavers. Earlier this month, Flipkart signed a MoU with the ministry of Labour and Employment’s Directorate General of Employment and Training (DGET), aiming to train at least 5000 students by December. Flipkart joined hands with the government to train people from semi urban and rural areas and possibly employ them at the company or its business partners.

Microsoft to launch Windows 9

Finally, we may finally get a glimpse of Microsoft’s Windows 8 successor codenamed threshold next month. Allegedly called the Windows 9, the new platform is rumoured to be taking a U-turn, as it will bring back most of the familiar Windows attributes. The windows 9 are likely to come with a host of UI changes.

One of the most consistent rumours and a highly anticipated feature of Windows 9 is said to be return of Start Menu. Microsoft will launch some more windows app with some kernel changes. Microsoft also plans to remove its Charms bar. The right side overlay used to access search, share, settings, and so on. Microsoft also said to add virtual desktops feature to Windows 9 for enterprise and power customers. Apple OS X and many Linux distros already come with support for virtual desktops. Virtual desktops will allow users to create separate active desktops and switch between them from a button on the taskbar.

Another highly anticipated feature is the return of Shutdown on Start. The start screen could also be improved to boot straight into the desktop. The new improved Windows 9 OS will also bring along a more familiar task bar that is said to unify the old and new user interface. Microsoft will create a universal app store for Windows 9, Windows Phone and Xbox. People also expect Google apps feature in Windows 9 OS. Apps such as Google Hangouts, Google Maps, Gmail will be inbuilt, which may run in offline mode too.

People are expecting that they can play Xbox games on Windows 9. However, there is a problem in new OS and it is web itself. Microsoft continues to support IE 8 and 9, which require an unacceptable amount of hacking to render properly. Internet Explorer 11 is much better but developers have created some pages, which will not open or does not work properly. Microsoft will release the preview of Windows 9 on September 30 and will only reveal new features of OS.

Ice Bucket Challenge

These days Internet has gone viral with videos of celebrities and other popular personalities taking the “Ice Bucket Challenge” and daring others to do the same. It is an effort to raise awareness of ALS where participants must dump a bucket of ice-cold water and then dare someone to do the same. If they cannot, the alternative is to donate $100 to the ALS association. Let us see where it came from and how did it start?

The Ice bucket challenge went viral on Social Media after a US baseball player and the ALS patient, Pete Frates, floated the idea of challenge in a video on a Social Networking Site. ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Motor neurons reach from the brain to the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body. The progressive degeneration of the motor neurons in ALS eventually leads to their death. When the motor neurons die, the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost. With muscle movement lost in the body, patients in most of the stage may become totally paralyzed.

More than 1.2 Million videos were shared on Facebook between June 1 and August 13. The Challenge was mentioned more than 2.2 Million times on Twitter since July 29, after appeal. According to ALS website, it has so far received nearly $53.3 Million from 1.1 Million new donors. Since June, several thousand people worldwide have recorded themselves getting drenched, then posted stunt online and challenged others to do the same, or pledge $100 to ALS research.

Former President George W. Bush took the Ice bucket Challenge in support of disease research on August 20, 2014, and challenged his democratic predecessor Bill Clinton to do the same. David Beckham, Justin Bieber, Mark Zuckerberg, Oprah Winfrey, and Bill Gates are some of the celebrities and business people to have recently taken ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. Many Indian celebrities such as Akshay Kumar, Sania Mirza, Yuvraj Singh, Daler Mehndi, Abhishek Bachchan, Mahesh Bhupati, Sunny Leone, and Riteish Deshmukh have taken Ice Bucket challenge recently. US President Barack Obama refused to take Ice Bucket Challenge but then he donated for the disease.

About 5,600 new cases are diagnosed each year in the United States. The internet has helped raise support for such causes and to raise much needed money. The viral nature of effort surprised even the ALS association.

Google Important Acquisitions

Google has spent more than $28 Billion on a whooping 163 companies since 2001. That is almost one company one month. The search Engine could have purchased all kinds of companies, service, and technologies from mapping companies to security services to gadgets and robots to gaming and facial recognition software and much more. With so many acquisitions, let us look at acquisitions, which have influenced Google business.

Google first invested in Green Energy startup before it completed its purchase of Makani Power in May 2014. This acquisition cost Google $30 Million. Makani has operated out of Google X Labs to build airborne wild turbines, which have the potential to be the dominant form of clean energy. Google purchased Zagat in September 2011 in $151 Million. It was mostly about getting the company’s content into Google services including search, Maps, and Earth. Google purchased Mexico based Titan Aerospace Company that made solar-powered flying drones in April for $60 Million. It can contribute to the Google Maps and Earth or even work with Makani Power Project. It is also playing a big role in Google project Loon, which strives to bring Internet connectivity to those regions without it beaming broadband from the sky.

In March 2013, Google purchased Toronto based DNNreserach Inc. to continue researching its experimental neural network. Google neural network proved it could identify the hundreds of millions of street and house numbers to help its Google street view users with location and navigation. It was purchased in $5 Million. Google wants to organize the world’s data and multimedia. For this, Google acquired DeepMind Technologies in January for $650 Million. It gives computers corresponding perception capabilities so machines can do things like listen music and soundtracks and build their perceptions. Google purchased Boston Dynamics in $500 Million. It used to make mobile research robots for the pentagon but now they are making robots for Google. Boston dynamics also made drones for Amazon. Google purchased GPS and navigation making company Waze for $996 Million last June. Google has vastly improved its real time mapping data about road conditions, closures, and accidents.

Google buys Nest labs in January last year for $3.2 Billion with a plan to bring Android to living room. Name of the project was “Android@home.” Nests made two home products, a thermostat, and a smoke detector. Google purchased Double Click in March 2008 for $3.1 Billion. Double Click has been a source of income for Google, developing and serving its ad services to customers like Apple, Coca-cola, and Nike. Google purchased world’s largest video sharing site YouTube in $1.65 Billion. It is the number three website in US and globally on which users upload 100 hours of new video content every minute. Google best deal ever was to buy Andy Rubins Android in $50 Billion. It was purchased in 2006 and is the most used smartphone operating system in the world.

These days Android, it is empowering in car systems, games, televisions, tablets, and wearable devices. These were the most important acquisition of Google. Recently, they purchased Jetpac, Emu, and Directr Inc. Most of the Google purchases are startups, which can add value to Google business and empower world with something new.

Ebola Virus in Africa

These days there are news of Ebola virus all around. Ebola virus in West Africa is killing people. Ebola Virus was first identified in 1976 in the Democratic Republic of Congo and spread to Sudan, with a reported 602 people infected and 431 people died. Since 1976, the virus has spread up around Africa with claiming lives in several countries.

In 1995, Virus killed 250 people in Congo, in 2000-01 virus killed 224 people in Uganda, in 2007 virus killed 187 people in Congo again, and in 2014 virus is again killing people in Nigeria, Liberia, Uganda, Congo, Guinea, USA. From African countries, this is spreading to USA, India, and other small countries. Doctors are working for 14 hours days, seven days a week for saving people life. The symptoms of this virus are High fever, Headache, Joint and Muscle Aches, sore throat, Weakness, Stomach Pain, and Lack of Appetite. As the disease gets worse, it causes bleeding inside the body, as well as from the eyes, ears, and nose.

Ebola virus is becoming a threat to PCs too. Cyber criminals are using the fear of the virus as bait leading to malware infections. Anti-virus experts have already found three malware operations and one phishing campaign using the Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa as a Social Engineering theme. Two of the malware used the most common and logical route of email with a catchy subject line so that victims open the report and are infected by Trojan. Apart from infecting victim computer, it also lodge itself into their web browser so as to gain access to various passwords and files.

Ebola is not as contagious as more common viruses such as colds, influenza, and measles. It spreads to people by contact with the skin or bodily fluids of an infected animal, like a monkey, chimp, or fruit bat. Then it moves from person to person in the same way. Those who care for a sick person or bury someone who has died from the disease often get it. Other ways to get Ebola is by touching contaminated needles or surfaces. One cannot get Ebola from air, water, or food. A person who has Ebola but has no symptoms cannot spread the disease.

Google Buys Jetpac

Google buys companies, startups, and interesting new technology every year and while most of its co-opted into the great Google ecosystem, many of it is barely seen by users of the search giant’s many services. Jetpac is a software developer for analyzing digital pictures, as it seeks to organize the world’s information and deliver it alongside advertisements on desktops and mobile phones.

In recent news, Google is buying Jetpac and will be removing Jetpac’s apps from the App store in coming days and ending their support for them on September 15. Jetpac is San Francisco based startup uses information gleaned from social media photos such as Facebook Inc.’s Instagram Service, to create city guides. By analyzing pictures of Food, décor, and people, Jetpac’s offers insight into city locals. Jetpac launched in 2012 as a social travel guide on iPad but later shifted focus to its Instagram driven data on its iPhone app, “Jetpac City Guides.”

Google has been highly acquisitive. Earlier this month, it said it was acquiring smartphone-messaging application Emu and video creation service Directr Inc., bolstering its mobile and advertising capabilities. The company more than tripled spending on deals in the first half of the year to $4.2 Billion. Pete Warden and Julian Green founded Jetpac, with Green now CEO and warden CTO. It has raised $2.4 million from venture capitalists firms, including Khosla ventures.

As more people upload photos and video to the web, demand has increased for services that can parse through images without written cues. Facebook earlier this year invested in artificial intelligence lab partially to improve its understanding of image and video content. Jetpac’s three application of smartphone, including a city guide, a photo analyzer, and picture detection tool will no longer be offered as downloads and support for them will end on September 15. Google has been building up its local offerings and maps offerings. Last year, Google bought mapping startup Waze Inc, paying about $1.1 Billion.

ZenSar acquires Professional Access

ZenSar technologies are a global information technology services and business process outsourcer headquartered in Pune, India. It is a software wing of RPG Group, and offers a wide range of integrated IT and BPO products and services to Fortune 500 clients. It has market present in Australia, US, Europe, and Asia Pacific. Professional Access provides retail e-commerce solutions for an undisclosed amount.

In recent news, ZenSar technologies acquired Professional Access. New York headquartered Professional access works with many large and mid-sized retailers in the US, UK, Latin America, Middle East, and Africa to build and implement their e-commerce strategies. Under the agreement, Professional Access will now be a wholly owned subsidiary of ZenSar Technologies. With revenues of over USD 38 Million Professional Access is one of the largest Oracle ATG and Endeca partners in the world.

This acquisition furthers ZenSar mission to strengthen position in the fast growing Oracle e-commerce space by combining ZenSar Oracle EBS, Oracle Retail, and Fusion Middleware solutions for global clients. Professional Access market leadership in Oracle e-commerce space and its strong management team is strategic to increase its market share in the high growth e-commerce space specifically and the MRD segment in general.

Zensar announced that it had won new deals in Germany, including a multimillion-dollar government agency project, as well as other significant deals elsewhere in Europe in July. Zensar is planning to reach its target revenue of $1 Billion by 2017-18 and out of which $100 Million comes from acquisitions.

Microsoft to set up cloud data centre

Cloud Computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility over a network. There are different types of clouds such as public, private and hybrid. The main benefit of cloud computing is that the device is location independent. Users can access systems from anywhere in the world.

In the recent news, Microsoft is said to be considering setting up a cloud computing data centre in India. If it does so, then Microsoft will be first MNC to set up cloud data centre in India. At present, many companies in India are employing Microsoft’s cloud computing services. All these data centres are located abroad. Their functionality is limited by the fact that the RBI guidelines prohibit the storing of customer data outside of India’s borders. This is the sole reason for limiting the adoption of cloud based services companies in India, mainly those companies that offer financial services.

Microsoft’s cloud computing is the fastest growing segment of the company. India is one of the fastest growing markets of cloud computing solutions in the world. It is growing with double and triple digits every few months. Even if Microsoft becomes the first MNC to set up a data centre in India, global competitors such as Amazon and Google are sure to follow and give them a tough fight. All three companies have cloud data centres in Asia at only one place, Singapore. Globally Microsoft has 13 data centres, Google has 12 and Amazon just 8.

It is interesting to note that even though internet users are growing at fast clip in India but none of the biggies has set up their data centres in India. It may be because of issues of infrastructure and power supply. This is the reason companies set up their cloud data centres in Malaysia or Singapore where infrastructure is good as compared to India.

Flipkart and OLX Partnership

With more and more people accessing the internet through smartphones and tablets, the internet user base has grown to be around 243 million. This has led to exciting and booming e-commerce sector in the country. Last week, Flipkart announced that it had raised fresh capital of $1 Billion; soon afterwards, Amazon too announced that it will invest another $2 Billion in India.

In addition, keeping the momentum going, Internet firms Flipkart and OLX are joining hands for one of a kind marketing partnership. The two sites will launch a joint campaign ‘urging’ consumers to upgrade by selling used products on OLX before buying the new products on Flipkart. OLX was founded in 2006 and is owned by South African Internet Company Naspers, which is an investor in Flipkart. OLX is a marketplace for used goods, while Flipkart sells only new goods. The campaign will be on for a month, and will include several categories within electronics.

With this partnership with OLX, it will be able to provide an end-to-end solution to customers especially in electronics categories where selling old products is an integral part of the buying process. Earlier this year OLX competitor Quickr, had collaborated with Amazon owned Junglee, a price comparison portal. Through this Junglee, users could compare prices of new products across online shopping sites and find locally available pre-owned products listed on Quickr.com.

The first phase of the tie-up will be kicked off with a joint marketing campaign using consumers to upgrade by selling their used products on OLX.in before buying the new products on Flipkart. The Idea of this tie-up was conceived keeping in mind the strong and independent position of OLX and Flipkart in their respective market space. The rationale for the number one online classifieds platform and the leading e-commerce platform coming together for a marketing campaign is a seamless one. With so much funds and collaborations Flipkart is reviving their business model and in no time Flipkart will be India’s largest Online seller and they can beat Amazon in selling products online. 

Micromax becomes India's mobile top seller

Micromax is an Indian Consumer Electronics Company headquartered in Gurgaon, Haryana, India. It is the business of Mobile Telephones, Tablet Computers, 3G Data cards, and LED Televisions. Micromax started as the IT software company in 2000 and worked on embedded platforms. It entered in Mobile handset business and became one of the largest Indian Domestic Mobile handset company operating in low feature phone segments.

In recent news, Micromax has overtaken Samsung as India’s leading handset vendor, capturing 16.6 percent market in April-June Period. In the previous quarter, Samsung had led the overall market with 16.3 per cent share followed by Micromax 13 percent. In the Q2 period, Nokia and Karbonn shared also rise with 10.9 percent and 9.5 percent. The overall mobile phone market grew a modest 2 percent annually, while the smartphone segment grew 68 percent. Samsung is at second place in Q2 with 14.4 percent market coverage.

Micromax is leveraging its wider distribution reach, growing brand awareness not only in Urban India but also in Rural India with affordable low-costs handsets. Rural India customer is very price sensitive, so Micromax is building strength in Rural India. This company use chipsets made by MediaTek, which tend to be cheaper than those made by industry leader Qualcomm Inc. Local Indian mobile phone manufacturers had about 32 percent of the domestic market. India ranks behind China and United States in smartphone sales, with up to 90 million smartphones expected to be sold there this year.

However, these brands will have to work hard on their brand awareness, distribution, and service network to continue the growth beyond the early spike in demand in this very important mobile phone market. With competitor like Flipkart, Apple, Karbonn, Celkon, Nokia, Sony, and Motorola, Samsung and Micromax will have to change their strategies to be the top market leader.  

Natural to Open stores in Delhi

People in Delhi love Natural Ice Cream so much that many of them get it specially packed in order to bring it on the flight from Mumbai. There is so much demand for the treat, first sold in a store in Juhu some three decades ago, that more than 2400 scoops of Natural Ice Cream are flown to the capital almost every day during the wedding season.

Without a store in capita, that is the only way to bring it in. Natural Ice cream will open in New Delhi by Diwali. Natural sells a total of 1.4 lakh scoops in half a dozen states. Natural opened first store in 1984 on Valentine’s Day, more as an outlet selling pav bhaji rather than Ice Cream. They store count has doubled to 116 from 50 doors in 2012 as it entered markets such as Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, and Goa. There is no advertisement of this company on any TV channel or Social Media. This is because Natural does not need it.

Experts said Natural will need to make sure the taste remains the same as it expands, since the dessert  now needs to be shipped to stores far away the factory at charkop, a northern suburb of Mumbai. Then there is a lot of competition in the market. Company is also planning to introduce some new flavors in the market and compete with other competitors.

While dairy giant Amul is by far the leader in the Rs 3000 crore Ice Cream market, others such as Baskin-Robbins and Gelato are expanding aggressively and now have more than 600 stores together. Hindustan Unilever, which runs Kwality Walls kiosks, brought its largest Ice cream brand Magnum into the country last year. Mother Day and Vadilal too have a strong presence in the country.

Swatch to Open Stores in India

Swatch Group Ltd. is a merger of two Swiss watch manufacturers: ASUAG and SSIH. It was formed in 1983. Swatch group Ltd. designs, manufactures, distributes and sells finished watches, watch movements, watch components, electronic systems and jewelry. This group employs over 33,600 people in 50 countries. In July 2014, Switzerland based watch chain has applied to open stores in India under the 100 percent Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) route.

The watchmaker would be the biggest international group to seek entry into India’s 100 percent owned single brand retail segment after furniture maker IKEA and fashion clothing firm H&M, both Swedish Company. Swatch watches, including Omega, Longines, and Tissot, are currently sold in India through dealers and third-party stores. The Indian watch market is forecast to rise to $2.7 billion by 2020 from $898 million now.

Swatch has also proposed to procure small or melee diamonds from the country to meet the condition of 30 percent local sourcing for foreign companies engaged in single-brand retail. The watchmaker has said its Indian subsidiary will source melee diamonds from the country and export them to the group companies for use in products made in Switzerland. The local sourcing of diamonds will lead to generation of business and employment opportunities for traders and artisans.

Apart from melee diamonds, the watchmaker has also proposed to source finished goods such as gifts, raw materials such as buckles, packaging material like pouches, tags, and cardboard boxes, in store material such as brochures, flyers, banners, and posters. India allowed 100 percent FDI in single brand retail in 2011 with mandatory 30 per cent sourcing from small and medium enterprises. Swatch proposes to invest $10 million in India over five years. The company proposes to set up 30-35 retail stores for selling Swatch branded products in India within 4-5 years.

Burger King to open stores in India

Burger King is a global chain of Hamburger Fast Food Restaurants headquartered in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The company began in 1953 as Insta-Burger King. Its two Miami based franchises, David Edgerton and James McLamore, purchased the company, and named it Burger King. The company became public in 2002 and it had over 13000 outlets in 79 countries. In 2010, 3G Capital of Brazil acquired a majority stake in BK in a deal valued at US $3.26 Billion.

In recent news, Burger King will open its first few outlets in India by the end of this year. Company aims to make India, along with China, its biggest market in Asia-Pacific. The outlets will come up in Mumbai and NCR. Coming at a time when rivals like McDonald’s, Domino’s and Yum brand have established a long lead here. Burger King will look to penetrate the untapped smaller towns to gain a toehold in the market. China and India will be two growth engines for the company.

Burger King has a joint venture with Everstone group; a Singapore based private equity and real estate group, to open a few hundred stores in next ten years in India. Burger king formed a joint venture in 2012 to open 1000 restaurants in China by 2015. It recently started selling burgers in Pakistan and Brunei.

Currently, almost 40% of the western fast-food market by value sales lies between Delhi NCR and Greater Mumbai. Burger King and Everstone may look to sub-franchise the brand for airport and railway retailing at a later stage. While Burger King offers vegetarian burgers and spicy bean burgers in UK and Canada, it will unveil a segregated vegetarian menu in India. Nearly two-thirds of Indians now eat out at least once a week, boosting the growth of restaurant industry, which is expected to touch $26 Billion in 2015.