TCS forecasts weaker Q3 results

NEW DELHI: Tata Consultancy Services, India's largest information technology outsourcing company said it expects a seasonally weak third quarter, because of the holiday season in its key markets impacting some of its main verticals. 

The company, in a mid-quarter business update on Friday, said it expects weakness in its retail, manufacturing, hi-tech due to furlough impact during the quarter. The banking and financial services business would be impacted by insurance and banking products, while telecom was likely to be "slightly better" than other verticals, it added. 

The third quarter, ending December, is seasonally weak for IT outsourcing companies due to holidays in the United States and Europe their biggest markets. While TCS expects business in North America to be in line with its expectations, adjusted for seasonal weakness; it said Europe would grow better than average.

Ford Ditches Microsoft For QNX In Latest In-Vehicle Tech Platform

Ford today took the wraps off Sync 3, its next-generation, in-car technology package that is, as you’d expect, faster, sleeker and much improved over the old one. It’s also more intuitive and easier on the eyes, and integrates smartphone apps better. But the biggest change is under the hood: Sync 3 is powered by QNX instead of Microsoft Auto.

When Ford first launched the Sync prior to the recession, it was novel in the infotainment space. The platform announced today, several years after version 2.0, is Ford’s third go at infotainment, and from my limited experience with the Sync 3, it’s dramatically better than its predecessors.

Previous versions of Sync are a mess. Most lately seen in the MyFord Touch variation, it combined a touchscreen interface with smartphone capabilities. It was a mishmash of colors, features and control schemes. Worse yet, it is slow. There was a notable amount of lag. Consumer Reports advised readers not to buy a new Ford or Lincoln because of MyFord Touch. It’s that bad.

MyFord Touch and Sync needed a complete overhaul.

 

 

Speaking to a small group of journalists deep in a Ford compound, Raj Nair, VP and CTO of Ford, said this new platform was the most researched product in Ford’s history. They received feedback from 22,000 consumers and Ford owners. It took 18 months to develop the infotainmenet system and nearly everything is different from the previous version.

Gone is the Microsoft Auto platform of old and in its place is a QNX operating system running on Texas Instruments hardware. Sadly, since the new Sync runs on a totally different hardware, vehicles that shipped with the old version will not get the new hotness.

The change in platform is noticeable. Sync 3 is now snappy and responsive. The hint of lag is gone. It’s clean and cohesive. Switching between screens and menu options is a smooth task and reminiscent of modern mobile devices — which is apparently what Ford was going to.

Sync now makes it as easy to use a smartphone app as the FM radio. One of the bottom nav bar buttons takes users to an app menu and media apps like Pandora will also have a button on the audio tab next to the AM and FM option. Ford discovered that 80 percent of its drivers own smartphones and this redesigned app scheme should allow for easier use of smartphone apps while driving.

Ford worked with select app developers for the Sync 3 launch. When it hits the first cars, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, NPR One, SiriusXM Radio and iHeartRadio Auto will be available.

Aside from the new look, map search seems to be one of the most improved aspects. When searching for a business or point of interest, the system will present suggested locations. For instance, if a user starts typing a word that starts with “W,” it will suggest Walmart, Walgreen or the like. This information is provided by Telnav and is stored locally along with the map data.

Ford took steps to improve the voice search but the overall scheme is the same. Users have to step through spoken menu options to get the best result. Thankfully it’s now smart enough to identify points of interest without the driver speaking the full name. For instance, Sync 3 should recognize “Detroit Airport” instead of requiring “Detroit Metropolitan Airport.”

Software updates come by way of Wifi. All cars equipped with the new version of Sync will also be loaded with a Wi-Fi receiver, allowing Ford to push software updates to Sync. But only Sync. Nair stated emphatically that there is a “hard and fast” firewall between Sync and “mission critical systems” in the car. Several times a month, when in a known Wi-Fi network, the car will check to see if an update is available and, if so, download it without intervention from the owner.

At launch, map updates are not free. A Ford representative told me that the company is exploring all business models.

Ford’s upscale brand Lincoln will also receive the new infortainment platform but with a different color palette. It will have the same capabilities, though.

Ford is still exploring all options with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. I was told that both are still on Ford’s roadmap. This new version of Sync packs improved Siri integration, but it’s nowhere as robust as Apple’s own in-vehicle offering.

I spent just a few minutes interacting with Sync 3, but it was immediately apparent that it is a big improvement over its predecessor. Sync 3 isn’t as flash as infotainment systems from Audi or BMW. It’s not as sleek as Chrysler’s Uconnect, yet it works well. And for most buyers that’s all they want. It will roll out to new vehicles starting next year.

Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg held his second public Q&A at his company's headquarters in Menlo Park in California yesterday.

We're sure he was just grilled about his site's privacy policy the whole time. Ha!

[ Related: Mark Zuckerberg Donates $25 MILLION To WHAT?! ]

He also fielded all sorts of other questions though, but one of the most important was this: Will we ever get a "dislike" button?

On this most important matter, Zuck said:

"Everyone feels like they they can just push the Like button, and that's an important way to sympathize or empathize with someone. [But] we need to figure out the right way to do it so it ends up being a force for good, not a force for bad.

We don't have anything that's coming soon but it is an area of discussion.

So we guess a "dislike" button might just be too negative for Facebook. TOO REAL.

But that doesn't mean they might not add a "commiserate" style option for those wishing to express empathy without having to "like" a post about a deceased loved one or something.

That sounds like a good step forward as long as they don't add a million different emoticon style options! LOLz!

Chennai the new haven for enterprise software hub

Chennai may still be a few paces behind Bengaluru in the startup race, but the Tamil Nadu capital has seen a consistent streak of success on ventures offering software products for businesses. For these startups that offer software-as-a-service (SaaS) online - or on the cloud - the inspiration has come from local heroes such as Zoho and Sify. Freshdesk, Unmetric, OrangeScape, HappyFox, ChargeBee, and Indix are among a clutch of new-age product companies that have sprouted over the past few years in the city synonymous with IT services.

It all harks back to a period around 2005, when fledgling entrepreneurs hung around startup discussion groups to receive mentorship and bounce off ideas, and Zoho Corp, a two-decade-old company, had begun offering enterprise software online. Being an early adopter of Salesforce's cloud storage systems, Zoho saw value and focused on delivering products on the cloud.

"We were one of the early movers in the SaaS space," said Shailesh Kumar Davey, who founded the company along with IIT alumnus Sridhar Vembu in 1996. And from it came a host of entrepreneurs who have been instrumental in making Chennai the hub of SaaS companies.

"Today, Freshdesk is what it is because of Girish's learning curve at Zoho," says Vijay Anand, who runs The Startup Centre, a Chennai-based startup accelerator. Girish Mathrubootham, a former Zoho vice-president for product management, set up customer-support software company Freshdesk in 2010. Today, it boasts of a 30,000-strong clientele, including Cisco, Sony Pics, Petronas, 3M as well as startups across healthcare, education, media, and technology sectors.

"Traditional customer-support tools were not ready to support social conversations," said Mathrubootham, Freshdesk's chief executive. "That is the opportunity we saw."

One of the advantages for Chennai is the availability of talent. By mining 300 million member profiles, LinkedIn concluded in a study in June that the city was attracting 38% of new tech talent, much higher than the Silicon Valley, which stood at 31%, though behind Bengaluru (44%), Pune and Hyderabad (43% each).

Chennai has seen as many as 19 private-equity and venture-capital investments since 2004 - only Bengaluru and Mumbai have got more, according to research firm Venture Intelligence. But most of the new entrepreneurs are building technology for enterprises, not so much for consumers.

"I rarely meet companies that say they want to be the next Facebook or Google. And that's not a bad thing," said Anand. According to Krish Subramanian, CEO of online billing platform ChargeBee, the culture of the city is such that its people tend to align themselves with what they know best. "Most of the (startup) entrepreneurs are experienced professionals in the age group of 30-40."

Even those who start off with a consumer angle eventually shift to a business-to-business model, like Konotor co-founder Srikishnan Ganesan.When Ganesan brought out his voice messaging app Phonon in February last year, there was a lot of noise around similar rollouts from WeChat, LINE and Facebook. "We got drowned out," he said, gesturing with his hands to mean the app was pulled out of Google Play Store.

Now, the IIM-Bangalore graduate offers a platform to businesses to talk to their audiences - a climb-back from B2C to B2B. Konotor, the new app, is live with customer-facing businesses such as online grocery BigBasket. And given the high concentration of enterprise startups in the area, there is more than just tech talent in abundance.

"There is a fair bit of sales talent that specializes in selling to enterprises," said Ashwin Ramasamy, 34, CEO of ContractIQ, which connects software companies with outsourcing firms. But ChargeBee's Subramanian, whose three-year-old company has over 500 customers across 42 countries, said the city has yet to catch up on design talent, probably a reason why many consumer-facing businesses have not taken off. Investors seem to understand it, while established companies are leveraging the expertise the city offers.

"There is definitely a certain amount of DNA and talent with respect to developing software products," said Sateesh Andra, managing partner at Ventureast.

"There is a reason why big companies such as TCS and Cognizant have their enterprise work done from Chennai," said Anand of The Startup Centre.