Daily News Digest- 6th Feb'15

Thought of the Day:

Today in History:

Following made the Headlines:

India:

• Alibaba Debuts in Indian Ecomm With Paytm Stake: Alibaba, the world's biggest and most valuable ecommerce firm, has finally moved to pitch its flag in India. An Alibaba affiliate, Ant Financial Services Group, said on Thursday it had signed a deal to buy a 25% stake in Indian mobile payments and ecommerce platform Paytm owner One97 Communications.While both sides did not reveal financial details, three sources familiar with the deal said Ant would initially pay around $200 million for the stake and stump up $375 million more in tranches based on the firm meeting performance milestones. ET had last month reported Alibaba was in talks to buy into Paytm, heralding the Chinese firm's indirect entry into a market potentially as big as the one back home. Speaking to ET over phone, Cyril Han, vice-president of Ant Financial, said the deal that seeks to effectively pump money into Delhibased Paytm -India's largest mobile commerce platform with nearly 25 million orders a month and more than 23 million mobile wallet users -will close in the second quarter of this year. Paytm offers recharges, tickets and deals besides hosting an integrated marketplace where it offers bargains to shoppers purchasing clothing, shoes, accessories and other goods.

• Japan Eyes India Ecomm Boom: India's ties with Japan, which have strengthened after Narendra Modi's visit to that country months after taking over as prime minister, may be in for a test-over substantial liberalisation of the ecommerce sector.That, and retail in general, is one of the few segments in which the administration is not too enthusiastic about overseas entry due to domestic political considerations. But the Shinzo Abe government wants India to open the ecommerce sector to foreign investment, seeking space for the likes of Rakuten, one of Japan's big online retail companies that has plans to become a global player, and Uniqlo, a clothing retailer with a strong global presence both online and offline and looking to expand in the country. Tokyo has not made the demand directly and has instead proposed it as part of talks at the Regional Compre Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) grouping. This grouping comprises the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and countries that Japan has free trade agreements (FTAs) with -China, India, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

• Britannia Plans Other Treats to go with Cookies: Less than a year after taking over as the chief executive of Britannia Industries, Varun Berry is busy finalising a roadmap to help shed the company’s cookiemaker tag by building existing non-biscuit categories and entering newer businesses. “We are in the process of drafting our strategic plan — what will we do to our existing categories to dramatically grow them, what are the adjacent categories that we should get to, and how to make dairy halfa-billion-dollar business, among other things,” Berry told ET. The plan, which will be ready by April, will essentially have details on new segments, expansion strategy into interna tional markets and how to scale up its dairy business. The company could be looking at bridge categories towards chocolates and snacks. “We want to encompass the centre of the plate rather than being on the side with biscuits,” said Berry, adding that he is just picking up the strategy from where his predecessor Vinita Bali left off.

• Star to Add a Dash of Humour in World Cup Coverage, Online: Star India is looking to rope in a clutch of comedy artists including the popular stand-up group All India Bakchod (AIB) for a special post-match recap show after each big cricket World Cup match that will be shown on the broadcaster's digital platform. The show, which will start with the India-Pakistan match in which Amitabh Bachchan will make his commentary debut, will break the traditional post-game format and present it to a younger online audience in a lighter vein. AIB has seen a sudden surge in popularity , especially on social media, over the past few days since its controversial `Roast' video went viral. On Facebook, the group got over 1.4 lakh new likes in one week. It also got 15,224 new subscribers on YouTube, according to social media analysis website socialbakers.com.

• Huawei Launches R&D Centre in Bengaluru: Huawei on Thursday launched a research and devel opment (R&D) campus here with an investment of $170 million. The campus, being the first by any Chinese company, has a capacity to accommodate 5,000 engineers but at present 2,700 people are working here, with 98% being local workers. “The India R&D centre will continue to focus on development and delivery of high quality software platforms, components and applications for the various product lines of the parent company,“ Huawei India R&D center COO Wilson Wang said.

• Twitter India Eyes Bigger Ad Revenues as Cricket World Cup Fever Peaks: Twitter India is planning to capitalise on the upcoming Cricket World Cup, luring in users and brands to boost its ad revenue. A report that Twitter has prepared and shared with ET shows that 89% of 2,650 Indian users surveyed are cricket fans. “It's a big year with Cricket World Cup and IPL. We will see brands making more and more use of big moments when the conversations are on Twitter,“ said Parminder Singh, Twitter's managing director for India, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. In the lead up to the event, India's cricket board and Nike Cricket have co-unveiled the Team India Jersey on Twitter, while Star Sports started an #OwnTheJersey hashtag trend. This comes at a time when Twit ter is ramping up in India to capitalise on a fast expanding internet base. It acquired marketing company Zipdial earlier this month, and appointed a business head for India, Taranjeet Singh.According to media reports, Twitter also plans to open a research and design centre here.

• Cisco Bullish on Tech Startup Investments: Cisco is looking at investing into new age technology startups that can help the company transform from being a networking company to becoming an end-to-end IT company . “We are moving very quickly from being a leader in networking industry to becoming a leader in the IT industry ,“ Cisco's Chief Strategy Officer Padmasree Warrior told ET. “In that context, the bets we are making and investing in are security , data centre and cloud, mobility services and Internet of things.“ India, Warrior believes, is a promising country from where many of these technologies can come. To grab early-stage ideas, the company is scouting for ideas from engineers even before the idea turns into a startup. “By 2017, India will have the world's largest mobile app developers and we want to make sure that we are leveraging that talent not just to come work for us but create companies that we can benefit from,“ Warrior said.

• Cashless Ecosystem on India's Agenda: Apple Pay may not be launching in India any time soon, but India is planning a major push to unify different payment mechanisms to create a cashless ecosystem in the country. The National Payment Corporation of India, an organisation for all retail payments supported by India's largest banks, is building a single interface platform for all transactions. The umbrella organisation wants to create a unified backbone and a set of application programming interfaces for others to build payment solutions on, according to a draft proposal it released on Thursday. “It's taking an interoperable platform approach to where Apple Pay went in a proprietary way,“ said Pramod Varma, chief architect at the Unique Identification Authority of India. The idea is to build a software layer over existing payment systems like credit or debit cards, electronic payments over banking platforms and mobile payment systems that third-party service providers can plug in and enable peer-to -peer transactions between virtual account holders.

• FreeCharge Raises Rs 480 Cr from Valiant Capital, Others: Online mobile recharge platform FreeCharge has raised $80 million (about `. 480 crore) in funding from a host of investors including San Francisco-based hedge fund Valiant Capital Management and Hong Kongbased hedge fund Tybourne Capital Management. The round also saw participation from existing investors--Sequoia Capital, RuNet and Sofina. “This round of funding will be primarily used for product innovations on mobile, team expansion and marketing,“ said Alok Goel, CEO of FreeCharge. Goel, however, clarified that the company will shift its focus from the expanding to other countries like Indonesia, the US, Latin America and Europe and look only at India. “There is immense opportunity in the country and we will focus on this market before venturing to international markets.“

• Dell Ramping Up Engineering Team to Make India its Software R&D Hub: Dell is looking towards India to transform its research and development capabilities that have lagged rivals for years. The US technology company is strengthening its engineering team here and increasing the number of patent applications filed from India -which, a senior executive said, has already become the largest contributor to software patents for Dell -as the local unit gets a large piece of investment that chief executive Michael Dell has promised for its R&D push. “At the corporate level, the number of patent filings has been growing at the rate of about 25% year-on-year,“ B Rudramuni, executive director and head of Dell India R&D, told ET. “However, in last two to three years, Dell India's patent filings have grown at 50-70% year-on-year. In fact, in 2014, patent filings from India nearly doubled.“ Almost all these patents were for enterprise software products: software meant for businesses to use in areas such as data centres, servers, storage and network applications.

• Meru to spend ₹ 600 cr to buy regional taxi brands: Meru Cabs, a pioneer in the radio taxi segment, is set to spend about $ 100 million (a little over ₹ 600 crore) for acquiring service providers in the next couple of months. Dismissing speculation over Uber being in talks with Meru for a buyout, Chief Executive Officer Siddhartha Pahwa said they were in an advanced stage of raising about $ 150 mn. A large part of it would be used to acquire small to medium- size taxi service provider brands across India. “I believe in the long run, only two or three players will survive. We are in an advanced stage of discussion to acquire multiple regional brands, as they will release some pressure from the constraints on supply and cost,” Pahwa told the Business Standard. The brands being considered — acouple had approached Meru on their own, he said — have a fleet size of 100 to 1,000 cars. The south and northeast are among the areas where these deals could fructify, Pahwa indicated. India Value Fund Advisors, which has a little over 80 per cent stake in Meru, would divest some of this for the fund raising. “ IVF would dilute stake but they are not exiting. The $ 150 mn will be used for acquisition, expansion and development of our network. Consolidation at this point in time is good for the industry,” he said.

International:

• Twitter earnings beat expectations as revenue grows: Twitter reported a net loss of $125m (£82m) in the fourth-quarter, beating analyst expectations. It also said revenue grew faster than expected, increasing by 95% to $479m during the October to December period. Total monthly active users were 288 million, an increase of 20% from the year earlier. However, growth from last quarter was significantly slower: the site managed to add only four million users in the past three months. Twitter tried to explain away the slowing growth, saying it lost approximately four million users during the period as a result of integrating various third-party applications.

• Sony Pictures co-chair Amy Pascal quits after email hack: Sony Pictures' Amy Pascal has stepped down as co-chair of Sony's movie studio following a debilitating cyber attack that revealed her private emails. Ms Pascal will start a production company that will launch in May 2015. She has already apologised for certain revelations that came as a result of the leaked emails. Last month, Sony condemned the "vicious" attack, which led it to suspend the release of the film 'The Interview'. "I have spent almost my entire professional life at Sony Pictures and I am energized to be starting this new chapter based at the company I call home," said Ms Pascal in a statement. She added that her transition to a production role had been discussed "for some time".

• RadioShack files for bankruptcy after long decline: US electronics retailer RadioShack has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a widely-expected move. It has lost more than 90% of its value over the past years, as it struggled to attract customers to its often outdated stores. In the Delaware court filing, RadioShack said it had $1.2bn in assets and $1.38bn in debt. RadioShack, which first opened in 1921 as a mail-order retailer, currently operates 4,485 stores across the US. The company sells everything from mobile phone accessories to converters and power cables. In its bankruptcy filing, the firm said it planned to sell up to 2,400 stores to shareholder Standard General. RadioShack was de-listed from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) earlier in the week.

• Etsy Rasta-Hat Maker Wants to Stop Site From Turning Into EBay: Wall Street may be salivating over Etsy Inc.’s coming IPO. Cherri Rodriguez is dreading it. Rodriguez, 54, sells crochet rasta hats for the Burning Man festival on Etsy. She recently scaled back her operation after a decade on the site because it changed a longstanding handmade- only policy and welcomed manufacturers. Like many Etsy veterans, Rodriguez frets that once Etsy goes public, investors’ appetite for growth will erase the artisanal ethos altogether. Since Bloomberg reported the IPO plans last month, Etsy merchants have expressed their anguish in online forums. Some wonder if Etsy will charge them more to list their products. Others say they may defect to rival sites. For her part, Rodriguez has started a campaign to buy $1.5 million worth of shares and agitate for change. The clamor won’t derail the IPO, and some Etsy merchants say the listing will raise the site’s profile. Still, critics say Etsy risks turning into another EBay that sells everything and anything.

• Louis Vuitton Unveils Revamped Rodeo Drive Store: Louis Vuitton has elevated the art of taking a show on the road with “Series 2,” an immersive digital experience based around Nicolas Ghesquière’s second collection. First stop: an opening tonight in Los Angeles, where the house also unveiled its renovated Rodeo Drive flagship on Saturday. The fete, hosted by Louis Vuitton chairman and chief executive officer Michael Burke, will be a starry affair with Catherine Deneuve, Jennifer Connelly, Michelle Williams, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Rosamund Pike expected to turn out for the women’s artistic director. “Ten years ago we planned this. Good retailers challenge coordination,” Burke laughed. He and Ghesquière actually began discussing the exhibition a year ago, after Ghesquière’s first Vuitton runway show, which spawned “Series 1” in Shanghai and Tokyo. “How could we bring a show to people who haven’t been to Paris? What you get online is not very satisfying compared to being at the show. But right now we have visual overload; instead of being satisfied, you constantly feel as though you are missing out.”

• Le Tote Raises $8M to Expand: The rental business model is gaining momentum online. Le Tote has raised $8.8 million in Series A funding to expand its operations, which rented out $15 million worth of apparel and accessories last year. Sam Edelman, House of Harlow, Betsey Johnson, Sanctuary, BCBG, French Connection, Splendid and T Tahari are among the 80 brands carried on the site. The round of funding was led by Azure Capital Partners with participation from Simon Venture Group, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, AITV, Epic Ventures, Arsenal Venture Partners and FundersClub. Letote.com launched a private beta version of its site in August 2012 before raising $3.7 million in seed funding in 2013 and opening up the site to anyone early last year.

Tech:

• Swatch Set to Take on Apple with Smartwatch: Swatch plans to start selling a smartwatch in the next three months, potentially pitting the Swiss maker of colorful plastic timepiece’s debut directly against Apple’s Apple Watch. The timepiece will communicate via the Internet “without having to be charged,” CEO Nick Hayek said in an interview. The Swatch smartwatch will also let consumers make mobile payments and work with Windows and Android software, he said. Hayek is ready to go head-to-head with Apple, which has scheduled its smartwatch rollout for April.

• Twitter, Google Ink Pact to Show Tweets in Searches: Twitter has reached a deal with Google to make its tweets more searchable online, Bloomberg reported, citing people with knowledge of the matter. Tweets will be visible in Google search results as soon as they are posted, starting during the first half of the year, Bloomberg reported. Twitter and Google engineers have started working on the project, Bloomberg added.

• GoDaddy, MS Tie up to Get SMBs Online for Rs 99Month: Web solutions provider GoDaddy has partnered software giant Microsoft to help small and medium enterprises as well as entrepreneurs get their business online for ₹99 a month. “We want to help small businesses take the first step to go online through 'Get Online Today' initiative. With this offering, interested businesses can have a website in the most affordable way,“ said GoDaddy India vice president and managing director Rajiv Sodhi.

• Apple Releases Photos for OS X Beta for Apple Developers: Apple has let loose details of its brand new Photos app — the expected replacement for both iPhoto and Aperture. Today, the new app was bundled into a beta version of OS X 10.10.3, which Apple made available to its developers. Overall, the look is simple and uncluttered, borrowing from the iOS Photos app, the desktop iPhoto and Aperture. Heavily integrated with the iCloud Photo Library and completely re-engineered, the new Photos app is designed to let you access any photo in your collection at any time and from anywhere. An Optimize Mac Storage option facilitates storage of full resolution photos and videos in iCloud while lower resolution versions are saved to your device. With iCloud, you automatically get 5GB of free storage and can purchase up to 1TB. Users of Yosemite and iOS 8 have the complete advantage with the new Photos app in that any new photos or video files are immediately distributed among all platforms. Edits are also saved across the board.

• Dropbox Now Lets You Open Files Directly in Native Apps: Having your files in the cloud is convenient for accessing your files from anywhere, but having to upload files again for every revision can be cumbersome. To make your life easier, Dropbox is today introducing a new feature that allows you to open files directly in their native desktop apps. Basically, if someone links you to a document, you can preview it in your browser first, and then click a new “Open” button to edit the file in its native app. You won’t need to download an extra copy or create multiple versions. Once you make the edits, the file will automatically sync back up to the original. Although the update will be rolling out to users automatically over the next few weeks, you can download the newest version of the Dropbox desktop app to enable the feature right now. Google introduced a Chrome extension in November for Drive that provides similar functionality. Of course, anything that makes editing and uploading files to the cloud more seamless is welcome.

• TweetDeck Now Supports Animated GIFs: TweetDeck can be an useful way of keeping track of multiple Twitter accounts and everything that’s going on in the social network, but it lacks some of the functionality of the regular Twitter stream. One of those missing feature was animated GIFs, but no longer. Now when a GIF shows up in your TweetDeck feed, you’ll see it embedded as an MP4 video, just as you do when using Twitter’s Web client. It’s a small change, but should save you some time by not forcing you to open a new browser window just to view a GIF.

• Google Street View Comes to Bangladesh: Google’s Street View vehicles have been doing the rounds in Bangladesh to bring you sights from the country’s capital of Dhaka and its port city Chittagong on your desktops and mobile devices. Bangladesh is the 65th country to have become available in Street View. Google announced today that it partnered with the Prime Minister’s Office in Bangladesh through the country’s Access to Information Programme to make this happen.