It’s a wrap: News this week (Oct 21–Oct 27)

There have been multiple developments this week on the tech front. From Vi’s IoT labs-as-a-service to Infosys’ five-year collaboration, this is the list of the most important developments for a quick catch-up:

Infosys-GmBH deal

Infosys signed a five-year collaboration with automotive company Smart Europe GmbH on Thursday. The partnership aims to enhance Smart Europe's digital sales and customer experience.

According to an exchange filing, Infosys stated that the collaboration will refine Smart Europe's direct-to-customer (D2C) business model in Europe. It will also provide improved customer experience, data-driven personalisation, and engagement for existing and upcoming all-electric models.

India’s first satellite-based giga-fibre service

Reliance Industries' telecom arm Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited, on Friday, announced its indigenous satellite-based internet service, called JioSpaceFibre that aims to connect individuals and businesses in the remotest of villages. 
 
The announcement comes at a time when Elon Musk-owned Starlink also plans to officially foray into the Indian market. The demonstration took place at the India Mobile Congress. 

As India's “first satellite-based giga-fibre service”, it aims to provide high-speed internet to areas in India that were previously unreachable. That said, with the new offerings, both individuals and businesses gain unparalleled access to reliable, low-latency, high-speed internet, and entertainment services, irrespective of their location, Jio said in a statement. 

In related news, Reliance Industries-backed HFCL launched India's first indigenous 5G FWA (fixed wireless access) customer premise equipment (CPE) solution on Friday. This launch aims to meet the growing demand for seamless high-speed internet connectivity in homes and enterprises.

ServiceNow’s investment in building CoEs

ServiceNow, an IT services company, has invested in ANSR, a firm based in the US and Bengaluru that specialises in building, managing, and scaling teams through global capability centres (GCCs). This partnership will allow ANSR to establish ServiceNow centres of excellence in over 60 GCCs, training 3,500 individuals in India on ServiceNow's offerings. 

The investment is being made through ServiceNow Ecosystem Ventures, which has committed $150 million to invest in partners and is also focused on expanding ServiceNow offerings across industries, domains, and go-to-market strategies in various regions. 

SAP cloud solutions on Indian data centres

SAP will make available multiple of its cloud solutions on a local India-based data centre from mid-2024. The company made this announcement on Wednesday in light of regulatory requirements for data processing and storage which affects Indian businesses part of SAP clientele. Expanding the current portfolio of cloud solutions available in India, including SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP Business Technology Platform, SAP SuccessFactors, and SAP Ariba will be hosted and offered to customers from within the sovereign borders of India, the company said in a statement.

Vi to offer IoT labs-as-a-service

Vodafone Idea's enterprise arm, Vi Business, on Wednesday, announced the setting up of an Internet of Things (IoT) lab-as-a-service in collaboration with the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT). The IoT lab, established in December 2022, is dedicated to advancing standardisation and interoperability within the IoT ecosystem. Vi said, to date, over 50 devices across various industries, including automotive, utilities, BFSI, logistics, and more, have undergone testing.