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Tag: Peel

  • Silicon Valley’s Peel buys Fission Labs R&D; names Kishore Poreddy as India head

    Silicon Valley’s Peel buys Fission Labs R&D; names Kishore Poreddy as India head

    MUMBAI: Just before the much-anticipated visit by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the Silicon Valley to focus on supporting innovation & technology in India, California based company Peel has acquired the Cloud R&D division of Hyderabad-based Fission Labs, which will now become Peel India.

     

    Fission Labs CEO and co-founder Kishore Poreddy will become the head of Peel India.

     

    A key player in smart home control, Peel has been working on a variety of cloud computing projects with Fission Labs over the last few years. As a result of this acquisition, the founders of Fission Labs, specializing in high end, scalable cloud-based solutions, data analytics, web and mobile applications, cloud management and testing services, along with about 30 software engineers will become part of Peel in India.

     

    Peel makes it easy for Indian consumers to switch to a smartphone remote because it works with all popular brands of TVs and air conditioners sold in India, and 600 set-top boxes (STBs), including those from Airtel, Tata Sky, Dish TV, Hathway, DEN and Siti Cable. For Indian consumers, Peel features TV listings from WhatsOnIndia.

     

    In addition to being used to control TVs, STBs and other entertainment devices, the Peel Smart Remote app is also optimized to control multiple brands of air conditioners and heaters, with more smart home devices planned for the future.

     

    “Asia and South Asia, particularly India, are very important growth markets for us, which has 125 million registered users of the Peel Smart Remote app that brings universal remote control and intelligent content discovery to smartphones. A Wharton Business School graduate, Indian-origin Thiru started his career at Apple as an engineer and product manager, where he helped author the first Mac OS X build system,” said Peel CEO and co-founder Thiru Arunachalam. 

     

    “We’re big believers in the Make in India initiative, which has created the perfect environment to set up a local entity to help us innovate more effectively for the global market,” added Peel co-founder and chief product officer Bala Krishnan.

     

    Krishnan, who holds engineering degrees from the University of Madras and University of Arizona, spearheaded the acquisition.

     

    Peel offers a “full stack” solution to help smartphone manufacturers introduce IR remote control to their products, including SmartIR firmware, hardware sourcing, cloud services and the Peel Smart Remote app. Several Indian phone manufacturers and distributors, including Alcatel OneTouch, Celkon, Karbonn, Panasonic, and Xolo, have already integrated the Peel solution into their phones, along with HTC, TCL and Samsung.

     

    “This is an exciting time to be doing R&D in India. Peel’s user base in India and globally is doubling every nine months and we look forward to playing a major role in ensuring continued future growth and innovation, particularly in the area of cloud scalability,” said Poreddy.

     

    The company now has offices in the US, China, India, and South Korea, and this acquisition brings the company’s total headcount to about 100 employees worldwide.

     

    With a three-year sales growth of 1607 per cent, Alibaba-funded Peel ranked 287 among the Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing private companies this year.

  • Peel smart Remote app generates 100 billion commands

    Peel smart Remote app generates 100 billion commands

    MUMBAI: Peel, a California-based company funded by e-commerce giant, Alibaba, has announced that its Peel Smart Remote app has generated 100 billion remote commands since its launch three years ago.

     

    Half of these remote commands have been registered in the last eight months only. Peel has also released a revamped version of its android app, including a customizable remote widget that can appear on a phone’s lock screen without launching the app. Peel is also available as a free app on the iTunes app Store for Apple iOS devices.

     

    The company recently topped 100 million registered users worldwide, out of which 25 million are in Asia. India has emerged as one of the fastest growing markets for Peel, doubling every six months. The large number of TV viewers give the company unprecedented insights into global viewing habits.

     

    “Our users have peeled in to 5 billion TV shows since we launched. We currently have viewer data on six shows every second that helps us improve our content discovery features and the overall performance of the app. It also provides us a unique real-time window into the living rooms of millions of households in India and 200 other countries that can help serve content that viewers really want,” said Peel co-founder and chief product officer Bala Krishnan.

     

    As an example of the insights gained, Peel looked at the top show, the top genre and the top TV brand in four metros across India based on a sampling of the insights gathered from users of the Peel app and platform.

     

    Even after nearly 1,700 episodes over the last eight years, family entertainer sitcom Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah remains the most popular show in New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, but ranks at number second in Hyderabad, where C.I.D. tops the charts.

     

    Comedy Night with Kapil grabs the number two spot in Delhi, but is pushed down to number three spot in Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore, with C.I.D. taking up the second position in Mumbai and Bangalore.

     

    In terms of content genre, Mumbai and Bangalore viewers prefer comedies, followed by dramas and then news. They prefer comedies in New Delhi, too, followed by thrillers, then dramas. While in Hyderabad, news tops the list, followed by sports talk, then consumer programming.

     

    Among the most popular TV set brands in New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Bangalore, Samsung comes first, followed by Sony and then LG. In contrast, Samsung and LG edge Sony out in the top two spots across TV brand positions among homes in Seoul, Dallas, Barcelona, Cairo and Rio de Janeiro. 

     

    In addition to being used to control TVs, set-top boxes and other entertainment devices, the Peel Smart Remote app is also optimised to control hundreds of brands of air conditioners and heaters, with more smart home devices planned for the future. “We are already the number one home control app in the world and a major source of entertainment content discovery for our users,” added Krishnan.

     

    In India, the Peel app comes preloaded on many of the leading smartphones, including the Samsung Galaxy S4, S5 and S6, HTC’s M8 and M9, and models from Karbonn, Celkon, Xolo and Panasonic in India. Peel makes it easy for Indian consumers to switch to a smartphone remote because it works with all popular brands of TVs sold in India, and 600 different types of set-top boxes, including those from Airtel, Tata Sky, Dish TV, Hathway, Den and Siti Cable. For Indian consumers, Peel features TV listings from WhatsOnIndia.