Reliance and Microsoft to support Innovative Start-ups

Reliance Industries along with Microsoft Ventures have planned to launch a GenNext Innovation Hub in September, 2015. This hub will serve as an incubator for upcoming companies and will be located at Navi Mumbai. A 19-week workshop of the first batch, ended in January. 11 start-ups are the part of the first batch.

The two partners play a distinct role in the venture. Microsoft assists in workshops, seminars, and different meetings while Reliance holds the responsibility of the infrastructure. Many heads of departments from Reliance also help in conducting the workshop.

Some companies that are a part of the first batch are as follows.

Coitor IT Tech (P) Ltd.

This company is based in Chennai. The heads of the organization are Mahendra Vellingiri and K.R. Sivasubramaniyem. Coitor provides a virtual dressing room wherein customers can see on a screen as to how a particular outfit will fit them. This saves shops from the cumbersome task of folding the dresses and saves the dresses from any kind of damage. Vellingiri said that 15 stores in Chennai are currently using their solution. He also notified of their plans of partnering with e-commerce sites as customers ordering online have a lot of issues with size, shape, etc.

AxleRate Solutions Pte Ltd.

The Singapore based company provides software that can help in women safety. When fitted in a taxi, this software identifies a scream, takes pictures of the passenger and alerts designated people. The company has partnered with Meru cabs and is looking forward to negotiate with the Government of Tamil Nadu so that even auto-rickshaws may have tracking and alert system. The brain behind this is a former BITS (Birla Institute of Technology and Science), Pilani student, Varadharajan Kumaravelu.

LogiNext Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

The company provides logistics solutions. It helps other businesses to get data and analyze to plan their routes and save a lot of time and fuel costs. With logistic solution, companies come to know about the exact location of their shipments. The founders, Manisha Raisinghania and Dhruvil Sanghvi, have experience of working with international logistics companies.

360 Health Vectors Pvt. Ltd.

The head of the company, Subhasish Sircar is an MBA from Wharton School of Business. The company collects patient data from hospitals and uses family history, lifestyle patterns and other factors to anticipate the risk of illness on the patient. The organization has partnered with Fortis in Mumbai.

Views of Reliance and Microsoft

R.A. Mashelkar, Chairman of GenNext Ventures and a board member of Reliance Industries is overwhelmed to see the innovations that the new companies are coming up. He said that they are delighted to see businessmen quitting their attractive jobs to start their own ventures and look after the global needs.

Rajinish Menon, Director of Microsoft Ventures, said that these new companies are witnessing enormous growth. He is hopeful that they are assisting those companies that will emerge as big names in the future.

Summary

<a href=”http://www.reliance-news.com/&#8221; title=”Reliance Industries”>Reliance Industries</a> and Microsoft Ventures will jointly set up a GenNext Innovation Hub in September at Navi Mumbai. The two companies will play the role of an incubator for the start-ups.

Reliance Industries increases its Oil Imports by 1.1%

Leading the world’s largest refining complex, Reliance Industries Limited increased its oil imports by 1.1% in January, 2015 compared to December, 2014. As per a report of Reuters, it also bought oil from Iraq after a period of four months.

The company had increased the shipments in the previous month so that it could build its inventory when the oil prices were low.

Changes in import in a month

There is a lot of change in imports of Reliance Industries in a month’s time from December, 2014 to January, 2015. The data is given as follows.

Within Latin America, it decreased the import from Brazil from 248 (x1000) bpd to 87.8 (x1000) bpd. From Colombia, there was just a slight shift from 67.0 (x1000) bpd to 67.6 (x1000) bpd while from Ecuador it bought 35.5 (x1000) bpd in January as against no purchase in the previous month.

In Middle East, the purchase from Iraq was 65.7 (x1000) bpd and no purchase in the previous month. The import largely increased from Qatar from 13.8 (x1000) bpd to 80.9 (x1000) bpd while it decreased from Saudi Arabia from 250.4 (x1000) bpd to 197.8 (x1000) bpd.

In Africa, the import decreased from Nigeria from 91.2 (x1000) bpd to 86.2(x1000) bpd. It increased from Angola with 31.3 (x1000) bpd this year from nil in the previous month. In contrast, Reliance Industries did not purchase the oil from Gabon in January, 2015 from which it had bought 30.0 (x1000) bpd, last month.

Overall there was an increase in the import with 1326.9 (x1000) bpd in January, 2015 from 1312.6 (x1000) bpd in December, 2014.

Changes in import in a year

The Mukesh Ambani-led company regularly changes its purchase patterns to earn the maximum revenue. Its January 2015 import was more by 21.8% in comparison to its January 2014 purchase.  This is because it had cut runs at the older plants of the company, last year. From 1089.3 (x1000) bpd, the import stepped up to 1326.9 (x1000) bpd in a year.

In January, 2014, Reliance Industries bought 46% from Latin America which changed to 49.5% in January, 2015. The import from Middle East has however decreased from 38% to 36.5% in the same period. Besides, Reliance Industries purchased 14% from Africa which was low at 9%, in the previous year.

Refinery of Reliance Industries

Reliance Industries has established two advanced refineries, both located in Gujarat. These two can jointly process 1.24 million bpd of oil that is around 28% of India’s overall capacity. This is largest in the world that any single location can process.

The Jamnagar refinery of Reliance was built in less than three years. It consists of a petroleum refinery and associated petrochemical plants. It refines many different types of crude oil like sweet crude, sour crude or a mixed version. It also manufactures multiple grades of fuel. The refining complex has 50 units for processing and has been successful in processing over 20 kinds of crude oil in the initial few months, itself.

Summary

The oil imports of <a href=”http://www.reliance-tracker.in/&#8221; title=”Reliance Industries Limited”>Reliance</a> have increased by 1.1% in a month, from December 2014 to January 2015.

Central Delhi to get Reliance Jio’s Wi-Fi Services

North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) has approached the telecom arm of Reliance Industries, Reliance Jio Infocomm, and asked it to launch its Wi-Fi services in Central Delhi by June, 2015. The corporation has asked Reliance Jio to set up the Wi-Fi network in all the areas that come within its jurisdiction.

Prominent places like government offices, central marketing areas, Lutyens Delhi, CBD colonies, NDMC colonies and embassies will be covered. Needless to say, residents will greatly benefit from this installation.

Plans of the Government

The Government decided that all cities and towns with a population of more than 10 lakhs should have access to Wi-Fi services by December, 2015. Along with major cities, popular tourist destinations should also be covered. Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched his ‘Digital India’ project, under which he has declared that 25 major cities of the country will be enabled with Wi-Fi services by June, 2015.

Preparations of Reliance Jio

The Mukesh Ambani-led company has initiated this installation process and has assured that the deadline will be met. It will make use of pillars of street lights to install the Wi-Fi devices. This will ensure better connectivity and reach and enable high speed to the users.

In the past, Reliance Jio had declared that it will be launching its 4G services across India in 2015. It aims to cover 5,000 towns and cities and 2,15,000 villages. It is targeting more than 90% of the urban population in India.

Steps in the Past

To test efficiency, Reliance Jio had already run many trial tests of its 4G Wi-Fi services. It has widely targeted Gujarat. It gave public Wi-Fi services in the state in April and May last year in Vadodara, Ahmedabad and Surat. In January 2015, it chose major events held in the state to give free Wi-Fi services. These events include Vibrant Gujarat, and Pravasi Bharatiya Divas held in the capital city, Gandhinagar. It also rolled out free Wi-Fi services in a metro city, Kolkata, for the first time.

Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited

Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited is a subsidiary of the Mukesh Ambani flagship, Reliance Industries. It is the first telecom operator in India to hold a pan-India Unified License (UL). It acquired this in October, 2013 and is since enabled to use varied technology to provide telecom services.

Reliance Jio also has a pan-India Broadband Wireless Access spectrum. It acquired this in 2010. The rules state that all the companies that acquired Broadband Wireless Access spectrum should initiate their services in 90% of the service areas by August, 2015. If the companies are unable to achieve this, then the Department of Telecom (DoT) has the authority to take back the radio waves given to them.

With this spectrum, Reliance Jio can provide 4G services in all the areas of the country. Besides, the company also has the Internet Service Provider (ISP) license through acquisition of Infotel Broadband Services. With this, it can provide any kind of broadband services in the country.

Summary

<a href=”http://www.reliance-news.com/&#8221; title=”Reliance Jio Infocomm”>Reliance Jio Infocomm</a> will launch and set up its Wi-Fi network in Central Delhi by June, 2015.

Reliance Jio’s Pilot Tests get an Average of 100 MB Data Usage Daily

Reliance JioInfocomm has acquired over 2 lakhs users in Gujarat in its pilot tests being conducted since last 8 to 9 months. The figures clearly indicate that Internet users in the state have a great need for high-speed data.

Private sources concerned with the tests informed that more than 100 MB high-speedInternet data is being used by every person daily, on an average. This makes the average monthly data usage from Wi-Fi hotspots exceeding 3 GB for every user. The average downloading speed that Internet users get from these Wi-Fi hotspots is more than 20 mbps as against 4 to 5 mbps that 3G services offer.

Ground Tests from Reliance Jio

Under Mukesh Ambani’s Chairmanship, Reliance JioInfocomm gave free Wi-Fi services at varied hotspotsin large cities of Gujarat including Gandhinagar, Surat, Vadodara and Ahmedabad. In the last 8-9 months, the companyconducted several ground tests to ascertain that high-speedInternetwill be successfully accepted by the state.These test will also help them to give efficient services to users after the 4G service is launched.

Under these tests, Reliance Jio gave Wi-Fi services for free in many major events held in Gujarat. In 2015, the services were offered at the 13th edition of Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD) from 7th to 9th January; followed by the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit held from 11th to 13th January; and then at the National E-governance Summit on 30th and 31st January. All of these events are very popular and attract many participants and visitors, giving the company a good opportunity to conduct its tests.

In the previous year also, Reliance Jio ran many trial tests of its high-speed data services and established 8 Wi-Fi hotspots at Ahmedabad. In March 2014, the then Chief Minister, Narendra Modi had launched the trial run in Gujarat as a part of the State’s e-nagar project.

4G plans of Reliance Jio

In the past, Reliance Jio has declared that it will launch its 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) services in around 800 cities in the country by June, 2015. It will provide 4G dongles and Mi-Fi devices. Through this, the users will be able to enjoy 4G services on any Wi-Fi-enabled phone at a speed thrice more than the average downloading speed that 3G offers. The Mi-Fi devices are capable of being connected to 10 handsets. Besides, Reliance Jio will establish more than 30,000 towers and also lease towers from other companies to enhance reach and network.

Reliance JioInfocomm Limited

Reliance JioInfocomm Limited is a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) and is also the first telecom operator that has acquired a pan-India Unified License (UL) that authorizes the company to offer almost every telecommunication service.

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