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A new speech analytics tool announced yesterday by Verint Systems is designed to help customer service professionals get real-time guidance for better managing calls. The software-based system can alert service reps to caller insights as they happen as well as help companies ensure compliance with important policies and regulations, the company said. The Melville, New York-based Verint said the new real-time speech analytics capabilities are natively embedded […]

Printers are down, but PCs are up — for now. That’s the scenario presented by Hewlett-Packard when it discussed its third quarter earnings with analysts this week. HP reported a quarterly profit of 49 cents per share, on revenue of $11.9 billion, compared with earnings of 39 cents a share on revenue of $12.4 billion for the same quarter last year. The company said its outlook for […]

Two years after being acquired by Facebook, the messaging service WhatsApp said it will coordinate more with its parent company to make it easier for businesses to communicate with its users. However, WhatsApp said it’s rolling out those changes in a way that doesn’t expose users to third-party banner ads and spam. WhatsApp revealed the coming changes in a blog post today centered around updating its terms […]

  TOKYO Japanese electronics maker Sharp Corp said Tuesday it will review its TV brand licensing deals overseas in an effort to boost its global presence under the aegis of Taiwan’s Foxconn.   “We have decided to review our current brand licensing business in Europe and Americas, and are currently examining various possibilities,” Sharp said in a statement.   The comment follows a report by the Yomiuri […]

Beginning “as early as next year,” Samsung may start selling refurbished smartphones directly to consumers. The new resale program is aimed at strengthening Samsung’s earnings as global phone sales slow down, according to report today citing “a person with direct knowledge of the matter.” Offering lower-cost refurbished phones could also help Samsung better compete against Chinese manufacturers whose cheap devices have cut into its sales, especially in […]

|ARABIAN POST SPECIAL| On April 13 this year, Emaar Properties disclosed to the Dubai Financial Market (DFM) that the company has agreed to take steps for a demerger of Emaar and Emaar MGF, the premier Dubai developer’s Indian joint venture. Beginning next week, the Arabian Post launches an investigative series on Emaar’s botched India experiment, which has cost the company billions in write-offs, embarrassing prosecution of the […]

Just months after its public launch, the self-driving truck startup Otto has been purchased by the ride-hailing giant Uber for an undisclosed amount. According to a Bloomberg estimate, the deal could be valued at about $680 million. Uber, whose “anyone-can-be-a-cabbie” business model has already shaken up the taxi industry, is also looking to provide autonomous car services in cities. Later this month, the company plans to begin […]

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By Eveline Danubrata and Glenys Kirana | JAKARTA JAKARTA Asian fans of smartphone game Pokemon Go are hunting out the best telecom providers and network gear to overcome the hurdle posed by patchy network signals in their race to capture virtual cartoon characters. From Indonesia to Hong Kong and Cambodia, the wild popularity of Nintendo’s (7974.T) augmented reality app is also driving lifestyle changes for many gamers, […]

SINGAPORE Singapore will make regulatory changes to facilitate the use of electronic payments, the central bank said on Friday, as the city-state aims to become a major centre for financial technology (fintech). “Our vision is to make Singapore an electronic payments society, a society that spurs innovation in payments technology, that gives consumers maximum convenience and confidence in making payments,” said Ravi Menon, Managing Director of the […]

By better integrating its Inbox software with calendar apps, Salesforce aims to make it easier for sales and marketing professionals to access customer data during meetings and on the go. Coming out in October, Salesforce’s new Inbox Calendar boosts the company’s existing email support by linking customer relationship management (CRM) data to a user’s calendar. Announced earlier this week, Salesforce Inbox Calendar was developed to help sales […]

UAE. A new study released today by global strategy and management consulting firm A.T. Kearney concludes that autonomous driving will trigger the 21st century’s first major wave of growth. Key findings from the report, ‘How Automakers Can Survive the Self-Driving Era’, are based on interviews with more than 150 automotive decision-makers around the world. A.T. Kearney consultants sought to identify the products, services and partner strategies with […]

INTERNATIONAL.  Nearly all of the Chief Strategy Officers (CSOs) surveyed by Accenture (NYSE: ACN) around the world acknowledge that digital disruption will reshape their industries, but very few are equipped to navigate the change. Those who feel most prepared are embracing new strategic alliances, devising more collaborative ways of operating with partners, and making themselves indispensable within a broader ecosystem.  For the report ‘Thriving on Disruption’, the Accenture […]

Starting Sunday, AT&T is launching new wireless plans that it said will eliminate data overage charges for customers. Instead of generating extra fees once they exceed their monthly data caps, the network speeds of customers with Mobile Share Advantage plans will be slowed down to limit further data consumption. Verizon, the largest wireless company in the U.S., made similar changes to its mobile plans last month with […]

As anyone who has driven a car or crossed a busy street knows, colors play a significant role in influencing people’s interactions with the world around them. And the color red, in particular, elicits the highest level of compliance for conformity with social norms. But according to new research co-written by a University of Illinois expert in product development and marketing, under certain conditions, the color red […]

By Tom Bergin | LA HULPE, Belgium LA HULPE, Belgium More than a dozen current and former board directors and senior managers of SWIFT, the bank messaging system that helps transmit billions of dollars around the world every day, have told Reuters that the organisation for years suspected there were weaknesses in the way smaller banks used its messaging terminals – but did not address such vulnerabilities. […]

Cisco Systems Inc is laying off about 14,000 employees, representing nearly 20 percent of the network equipment maker’s global workforce, technology news site CRN reported, citing sources close to the company. San Jose, California-based Cisco is expected to announce the cuts within the next few weeks, the report said, as the company transition from its hardware roots into a software-centric organization. (bit.ly/2bEQfa3) Apart from Cisco, the other […]

CAIRO — An airstrike on a residential area near the Yemeni capital, Sana, on Tuesday killed 17 civilians, most of them women and children, as international criticism continued to build over a deadly bombing the day before of a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders. Residents of a village in Nehem District, northeast of the capital, said that warplanes from the Saudi Arabia-led military coalition fighting on […]

As more and more enterprises give up license-based software in favor of faster, more convenient cloud services, the software industry itself is changing dramatically, according to a recent report from the advisory firm PwC (formerly known as PricewaterhouseCoopers). Although legacy software companies that have moved into the cloud are reaping the benefits of the growing “as-a-service” ecosystem, they are also facing some risks. The “PwC Global 100 […]

UAE.  Based on a new report by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) titled Self-Driving Vehicles, Robo-Taxis, and the Urban Mobility Revolution—and prepared in collaboration with the World Economic Forum—consumers around the world are surprisingly knowledgeable about Self-Driving Vehicles (SDVs) and their potential benefits, and, by and large, they are more than willing to give them a try. In fact, the study shows that 70% of  consumers in […]

LONDON Sage Group, a provider of accounting, payroll and payments software for businesses, said cyber attackers had used an internal login to access the data of some of its British customers. The personal details of the employees of about 280 British companies were potentially exposed in the breach, a company source said. “We are investigating unauthorised access to customer information using an internal login,” the company said […]

By Harry Pearl and Charlotte Greenfield | SYDNEY SYDNEY German tech entrepreneur and alleged internet pirate Kim Dotcom will seek a review of a Federal Court decision which rejected his bid to keep hold of millions of dollars in assets held in Hong Kong and New Zealand, his lawyer said. A three-judge panel of the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled two to one on Friday […]

Users like the convenience of Google’s Drive suite of applications, but the Docs, Sheets and Slides apps haven’t received high ratings from mobile users, especially when it comes to using them to make tables and charts. However, an update to the Docs, Sheets and Slides apps for Android released this week aims to make them easier to use than ever. For instance, when users copy a body […]

While Salesforce didn’t shout from the rooftops about its recent decision to acquire the “living document” platform provider Quip, it clearly sees big potential in integrating Quip’s offerings into its own. Quip, a four-year-old San Francisco-based tech firm with just about 40 employees, is on track to become a wholly owned subsidiary of Salesforce, which is paying an estimated $750 million for the company. Since news of […]

UAE.  While cybersecurity is one of the most prevalent issues of our time, the resulting impact of a cyber incident is still largely unproven. Recognizing the need of business leaders to have clarity around the enterprise-wide effect of such events, Deloitte the global leader in cyber risk advisory services, released: “Beneath the surface of a cyberattack: A deeper look at business impacts,” a risk-based report outlining the […]

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