MAM
Hutch joins hand with Microsoft; brings Office on mobile phones
MUMBAI: Hutch has launched ‘Microsoft Outlook on Hutch’, a service that allows Hutch users to access their office emails on their mobile phones. A unique corporate solution developed jointly by Hutch and Microsoft, the service enables access to corporate emails using either SMS or GPRS service.
Announced jointly by Hutchison Essar director Asim Ghosh and Microsoft India managing director Rajiv Kaul, the service will enable Hutch subscribers to read, download, edit and send Microsoft Outlook emails with Microsoft Word, Excel or Power Point, says an official release.
With help of the service, all Hutch users can receive SMS alerts informing them about new email in their corporate mailbox and can read the entire mail on their mobile phones. The Microsoft Outlook on Hutch’ service is secure and accessible even when the user is roaming, claims the release.
The service can be activated by setting an option on the user’s corporate mail server (Microsoft Exchange 2000 / 2003), which allows a copy of office mails to be delivered to the user’s Hutch phone. Using this service, Hutch users can view emails over SMS for a monthly fee of Rs 49, informs the release.
The base service is available to Hutch GPRS users at no extra cost. For those who choose to use the ActiveSync facility to download, edit and send mail in MS Word, Excel or Power Point formats, a fee of RS 499 per month will be applicable.
Commenting on the service, Ghosh, said, “This brings to the mass business market the two great leaps of communication – business email and mobile telephony. Now for the first times, business users can manage their emails with a wide range of handsets – not a service reserved for the elite.”
According to Kaul, said, “The PC and the mobile phone are technological innovations that have dramatically improved the lives of consumers worldwide, and the corporate user in particular has been one of the greatest beneficiaries. The Outlook on Hutch service combines the two to offer a powerful new tool to corporate users – allowing them to use a single device to communicate and stay connected.”
“We are committed to providing our customers with a seamless computing experience. Customers should be able to leverage our technologies and their investments in infrastructure, no matter what access device they use. The launch of this service is a result of that commitment, ” Kaul added.
“We have always worked with leading international partners for developing innovative services for our users. We are happy to be working with Microsoft for bringing corporate solutions that help improve our subscribers’ productivity,” added Ghosh.
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Abhay Duggal joins JioStar as director of Hindi GEC ad sales
The streaming giant brings in a seasoned revenue hand as the battle for Hindi television advertising heats up
MUMBAI: Abhay Duggal has a new desk, and JioStar has a new weapon. The media and entertainment veteran has joined JioStar as director of entertainment ad sales for Hindi general entertainment channels, adding 17 years of hard-won revenue experience to one of India’s most powerful broadcasting operations.
Duggal is no stranger to big portfolios or bruising markets. Before joining JioStar, he spent a brief stint at Republic World as deputy general manager and north regional head for ad sales. Before that, he put in three years at Enterr10 Television, where he ran the north region for Dangal TV and Dangal 2, two of India’s leading free-to-air Hindi channels. The north alone accounted for more than 50 per cent of total channel revenue on his watch, a number that tends to get attention in any sales meeting.
His longest stint was at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, where he spent over six years rising to associate director of sales. There he commanded the Hindi movies cluster across seven channels, owned more than half of north India’s revenue across flagship properties including Zee TV and &TV, and closed marquee sponsorships across the Indian Premier League, Zee Rishtey Awards and Dance India Dance. He also handled monetisation for the English movies and entertainment cluster and the global news channel WION, a portfolio that would stretch most sales teams twice his size.
Earlier in his career Duggal closed what was then a Rs 3 crore single deal at Reliance Broadcast Network, one of the largest in Indian radio at the time, before that he helped launch and monetise JAINHITS, India’s first HITS-based cable and satellite platform.
His edge, by his own account, lies in marrying data and instinct: translating audience trends, inventory signals and client demands into long-term partnerships built on cost-per-rating-point discipline rather than short-term deal chasing. In a media landscape being reshaped by streaming, fragmented attention and AI-driven advertising, that kind of rigour is increasingly rare and increasingly valuable.
JioStar, which blends the scale of Reliance’s Jio platform with the content firepower of Star, is doubling down on its advertising business at precisely the moment the Hindi GEC market is getting more competitive. Bringing in someone who has spent nearly two decades doing exactly this, across some of India’s most watched channels, is a pointed statement of intent. Duggal has spent his career turning audiences into revenue. JioStar is clearly betting he can do it again, and bigger.
