WhatsApp Business App for SMEs Now Available in India

Just days after its initial rollout, the WhatsApp Business app has now debuted in India. The standalone app offers a simple tool for small businesses to let them communicate with their clients and customers in an easy way. Facebook-owned WhatsApp announced the plans to kick off its WhatsApp for Business initiative back in September last year and launched a pilot by partnering with companiessuch as BookMyShow, Netflix, and MakeMyTrip. The new app, for small businesses, arrived first in a handful of markets, including Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, the UK, and the US, on Friday. Interestingly, the app was initially tested in India and Brazil ahead of its public release.
The WhatsApp Business app is now available for free download via Google Play in India. It is compatible with devices running Android 4.0.3 and above. A version with similar features is also expected to be available for iOS devices in the coming future.

Happy republic day

Cashbacks, Rewards, and the Growth of Google Tez Payment App in India

Tez, Google's payments app for India that's built on top of the country's Unified Payments Interface (UPI), was launched in September last year. By early December - a little less than three months after the launch - the app had clocked 12 million users and 140 million transactions.

Those are impressive numbers, even if the government backed UPI app BHIM, which also launched last year, clocked 10 million users at a much faster rate - within 10 days. In terms of the number of transactions, however, Tez has completely blown past its competition.

When Gadgets 360 reached out to Google this week, the company reiterated that Tez has seen over 140 million transactions in the roughly three months since it launched on September 18. In contrast, according to figures from the National Payments Corporation of India - the entity that operates the payments interface UPI - the government-based BHIM app has seen just about 62 million transactions over 12 months, with only 9 million transactions in December.

Why the huge difference in the number of transactions, despite the two apps having similar user numbers? Is Google Tez such a game changer? At the time of the Tez launch, DD Mishra, Research Director, Gartner had said that Tez had the potential to do so. "It is too early to say whether it can be a game changer, but yes it has the capabilities to bring some disruption," he had said.

Google, on its part, credits the success of the Tez app to its "simplicity".

"People prefer simple, safe and trusted apps that are widely used. We’re happy that people are recommending Tez to their friends and family because they like the simplicity of the product," a company spokesperson told Gadgets 360.

Toshiba Introduced World’s First 14TB HDD

Toshiba Electronic Components Taiwan Corporation has announced the launch of the MG07ACA Series, the world’s first enterprise 14TB Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR) HDD.

Using a 9-disk, helium-sealed design, the new MG07ACA Series provides the power-efficient capacity and storage density needed by cloud-scale and enterprise storage solution providers to achieve their TCO objectives.

“We have raised the bar with the new MG07ACA Series 9-disk helium-sealed design,” said Tadashi Sakaue, Division President, Storage Products Division, Toshiba Electronics Components Taiwan Corporation.“By utilizing an innovative design, we continue to improve the benefits that high-capacity disk storage can deliver to our broad global customer base.”

The MG07ACA Series features both 14TB 9-disk and 12TB 8-disk models. The helium-sealed 3.5-inch[3] mechanical design realizes better storage density and a lower HDD operating power profile than the previous MG06ACA Series for optimal TCO in cloud-scale infrastructures.