In Brief: Nutanix appoints new CEO; Facebook faces antitrust lawsuit

San Jose, California headquartered Nutanix on Thursday said that it has appointed technology industry veteran Rajiv Ramaswami as its president and CEO, effective December 9. Ramaswamy, who will succeed Nutanix co-founder Dheeraj Pandey, will also join the cloud services provider’s board, a statement said. Ramaswamy has over 30 years of experience in building and scaling businesses that operate in cloud services, software and network infrastructure segments, including giants such as VMware, Broadcom, Cisco, Nortel and IBM. 

FTC, 48 US states file antitrust lawsuit against Facebook

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), along with 48 US states have reportedly filed parallel antitrust lawsuits against Facebook, accusing the social media giant of anticompetitive practices. The coalition has alleged that the Mark Zuckerberg-led company is engaged in a strategy of systematically eliminating any companies that could pose a challenge to its monopoly, Livemint reported. The cases cite the company’s acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp as well as its stringent rules for developers as examples of the matter, it said.

upGrad offers 72 University of Essex programmes

Ronnie Screwvala-promoted upGrad on Thursday said it has partnered with the University of Essex to offer 72 of the latter’s online learning courses on its platform. The undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, which include 16 disciplines, will be delivered through Kaplan Open learning (KOL), which is an academic/academy partner to the university. In addition to Indian users, the upGrad-University of Essex partnership will also offer the courses to learners in Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand, the statement said.

Read: Is upGrad spreading itself too thin too fast?

DotPe launches digital showroom for small businesses

Gurugram-based DotPe, which owns and operates an eponymous O2O commerce and fintech platform, has launched a digital showroom for small businesses. The service, the company said, will allow SMBs to set up an online store on WhatsApp in 15 seconds and start online sales. The app, available on Google Play, has already raked in 2.2 million downloads, it added.

Swiggy to bring 36,000 street vendors online

Foodtech platform Swiggy said it plans to bring over 36,000 street vendors online in partnership with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), under the PM Street Vendor AtmaNirbhar Nidhi Scheme. The company said it has chosen these vendors from 1.47 lakh applicants and will provide them with a Food Safety Training and Certification (FOSTAC) in partnership with FSSAI and empanelled partners to help them deliver good quality food in a safe and hygienic manner. Their listings will feature in a special section of its app, the company said, noting that it has already onboarded over 300 vendors during the initiative’s pilot. 

Read: Swiggy GMV declined 62% in April-June quarter: Naspers

Instamojo digitises over 2 lakh small businesses

Instamojo Technologies, which provides full-stack solutions to MSMEs, said it has digitally enabled more than 2 lakh businesses in the two quarters since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. The company said it has onboarded businesses operating in segments such as education, services, books and magazines, B2B, clothing, and financial services. More than 70% of the businesses did not have any online presence earlier, it said, adding that the pandemic brought about a 360-degree digital shift, forcing businesses to adopt online solutions to survive and cater to an evolving customer segment.