Six online resources for mothers

 There are online resources to help mothers in their daily lives.

Even exceptional multitaskers could do with a helping hand sometimes. So, here are six online resources for the ladies who work selflessly and tirelessly for you in the background.

World Moms Blog (WMB) 

The WMB connects mothers from over 20 countries who blog about their daily experiences at home and at work, covering a wide range of topics, from motherhood and culture, to human rights and social work.

India-based Purnima Ramakrishnan, for instance, has written about a group of pre-teen boys in Chennai who started their own sports club. In fact, this stay-at-home mother was recently invited by the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies to travel to Brazil and cover human stories from the South American country.

Similarly, US native Kim — writing under her nom de plume of Mama Mzungu or "white mama" — blogs about her humanitarian work and the travails of raising two boys in Kisumu, Kenya.

Then there's Susie Newday, a New Yorker working as an oncology nurse in Israel, who shares the ups and downs of working with outpatients in Tel Aviv.

Browsing through this weblog is like walking in their shoes: as a nurse, a teacher, an international lawyer, a social worker. Simply put, this collaborative effort is a great resource that raises public awareness for social causes that are actively championed by these moms.
www.worldmomsblog.com

Circle of Moms 

Circle of Moms is an online community of over seven lakh members who exchange tips, how-tos and advice on parenting, single motherhood, education, recipes, relationships, family time and more. There's even a section dedicated on how to keep your sanity (yes, really).

There are communities for working as well as stayat-home mothers; for moms from specific cultural backgrounds, or with children in a particular age group. The list is exhaustive — adoption, spouse fitness , diet, special needs, etc. — and user interaction is high. All you need to do is register and join the communities that interest you.

If needed, you can create your own community and invite others to join and share anecdotes. And it doesn't always have to be about parenting - you can also join hobby groups that could be about a specific television show, music, books, art, and pets.
www.circleofmoms.com

Makers 

While Makers is not strictly about mothers, it is about women who have made a mark in arts, politics, music, science and tech, sports, business, education and more.

Here you will find inspirational videos and interesting posts, including the one about fourteen accomplished women — like singer Susan Boyle — who had been diagnosed with autism; Reshma Saujani and her NYbased organisation that teaches girls to code, NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson who calculated the flight path of the first American space mission, etc. You can sign up for the newsletter, create an account to upload your own Maker Story and even create a playlist of your favourite videos.
www.makers.com

Cozi 

If there's any organising or planning that has to be done at home, it's usually the mater who does it, but even mommies could use a helping hand.

Cozi is a neat calendar and task-planning app that every family member needs to have installed on their smartphone. Login using a single ID, and each and every member in the group can view a unified calendar, to-do tasks, grocery lists and even journal entries.

When you run out of toiletries, for example, just add items to the list of things to buy and everybody gets to see the update. Entries are colour-coded so you know who has added an item to the app. Import your phone's calendar and everyone in the group will also know your schedules, friend's birthdays and school functions. You can even e-mail the week's agenda to the entire family. Now, nobody will be able to make excuses about forgetting to pay bills, buy groceries, or even attend an uncle's birthday party.

Where: www.cozi.com

Available for: Android, iOS | Free

Life360 

If you are in the habit of calling to find out where your kids are, then install Life360 on their smartphones. It's a family locator app that lets you add family members to "circles" to track their whereabouts throughout the day. It also doubles as a navigating tool: Create a temporary circle, and you can add the friends you are going to meet and use the tracker to follow their route to the destination. All through the journey, you can also have one-onone chats with members in the circle.

More importantly, this app also includes an alert button that raises an alarm on all the members' phones, informing them of an emergency with a call, text message and location coordinates - a must-have app for peace of mind.

Where: www.life360.com

Available for: Android, iOS | Free

Myfitnesspal Calorie Counter 

Mothers have to juggle hectic schedules and deal with stress all the time. This is why it is extremely important they keep a tab on their own health. With MyFitnessPal Calorie Counter, mommies will be able to maintain a healthy lifestyle and also manage her family's diet regimen.

This app lets you plan your diet and even keeps a track of what you eat. When you sign up, it first asks for details such as your height, current weight, target weight, type of job - and accordingly builds a profile with how many calories you should be consuming each day.

Just add whatever you eat into the Calorie Counter by searching for the meal — including Indian dishes — or ingredients. You can then view the day's summary or your weekly consumption to check your progress.

Don't forget to add your family members into your group so that you can encourage each other to follow a healthier lifestyle
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Gmail may soon get a makeover

Google may be working on a new user interface for  the web version of Gmail, its popular online webmail service.

NEW DELHI: Google may be working on a new user interface for the web version of Gmail, its popular online webmail service. 

According to a new report, Google is testing new features for Gmail's web interface. Geek.com claims to have access to screenshots of the new Gmail screen undergoing testing. 

The interface featured in the screenshots features more white space and removed the new tabs feature. There's a new hamburger menu at the left side that hides the different mail folders, and even the mail categorization groups which are currently present as tabs. The Hangouts chat menu is placed at the top right with a drop down list of chat contact and a big Search box sits in the middle.

 

On the right hand side towards the bottom, the interface features email and reminder creation buttons that are round shaped. According to the website, the tools will let users store multiple unfinished messages or reminders. 

It also includes a new pin system that reportedly replaces stars for flagging important mails. It lets users pin important mails by dragging them around. 

It's not clear when Google will eventually release the new interface and it's not confirmed if it would even use the interface in the form revealed in the screenshots. It may be possible that the company showcases it at the forthcoming Google I/O even in June.

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AmEx, PepsiCo, Microsoft, PwC and Tata to bring 31 top women leaders under common mentoring programme

Corporate giants American Express, PepsiCo, Microsoft, PwC and the Tata Group are bringing 31 of their top women leaders under a common mentoring and training programme.

This is the first such initiative and multinational companies involved in this hope to export the program to their global parents.

Besides mentoring women leaders through this eight-month program named Reach Out, companies also hope to share and learn from each other’s best practices on diversity and inclusion. This is a brainchild of American Express.

These 31 women leaders – all working at one to three levels below the CEO – will be mentored by leaders from the five companies and will be taken through group workshops, leadership dialogues, online communities, peer learning circles, and a concluding learning summit.

“When you hit senior management, everybody is good. How does the CEO decide who is the person who should be brought forward…So lean in, be heard, seek mentors and peers. That’s what this programme is all about,” Sanjay Rishi, president, American Express South Asia told these leaders. Participants include Puja Batra, director, legal, foods at PepsiCo; Vani Gupta Dandia, director, marketing, Kurkure, at PepsiCo India; Rashmi Upadhya, director, strategy at PwC; Renu Basu, global head of sales for Indian Hotels Company ( Taj Group); and Kashmira Mewawala, head of business development at Tata Capital.

“Boosting diversity requires concerted efforts over time. It is tough to get the elements right. We realise it can’t be done overnight,” NS Rajan, member of the group executive council and group country HR officer for the Tata Group, said.

Learning from Other Cos 12

CXOs will lead these women in structured 90-minute group workshops in June, August and November, giving them the opportunity to engage with leaders outside their respective companies.

Mentors include Bhaskar Pramanik, chairman, Microsoft India; Sanjay Rishi, president, American Express South Asia; D Shivakumar, chairman and CEO, PepsiCo; Russell Pereira, executive director, assurance, markets and industries leader for PwC; Harish Bhat, member of the group executive council, Tata Group; and NS Rajan.

“When this initiative came up, it gave us a chance to interact with others and see what others are thinking. Depending on how it develops, I hope to get this to roll out in other PwC territories globally,” said Deepak Kapoor, chairman, and territory senior partner, PwC. Till now, the firm was only benchmarking itself internally and against the global PwC network.

“We recognise it may not be a perfect programme, but there is no such thing as a perfect programme,” Amit Chincholikar, VP, group human resources, Tata Sons said. “So unless we take risks and get our top women leaders into a common forum, it is not going to work.”

Peer learning circles under Reach Out will be moderated by an external diversity and inclusion consultant and leaders will dialogue on topics relevant to the group, share career and life experiences and build networks. Moderated online, Yammer communities will keep discussions alive through HBR articles and blogs, chats, discussions and opinion polls on subjects relevant to the group.

“What got us excited was to have a team of five companies expose their top women talent and help learn from each other,” Rohit Thakur, head of human resources for Microsoft said. “Over a three-year period, we hope to have a bunch of finely exposed and trained women leaders and I hope to take back some of the learning to implement back in my organisation at a much broader level.”

India Inc has been keen to promote gender diversity, but it has not been an easy journey. Some like Samik Basu, chief people officer at PepsiCo, see this as an opportunity to share and learn from other companies.

Even though companies are trying to improve diversity, women leaders are still small in number. Vani Gupta Dandia, one of the 31 leaders in this programme, says just being able to connect with like-minded peers across industries is in itself comforting, as breaking into the boys club can sometimes be very difficult.

American Express’ Rishi hopes more companies will join in as the pilot progresses. “We hope to establish an important network of women leaders who continue to exchange ideas and best practices and personal dynamics will also go beyond best practices.”

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More Indians choose to work in India due to slowdown

40 per cent Indians are cautious about moving to the West for jobs due to the economic slowdown, according to a TimesJobs.com study. The study also indicates that highly skilled professionals are returning home seeking the economic opportunities that they once sought abroad. 

The study further pointed out that 34 per cent still prefer to move to west for a job, while 26 per cent would like to turn entrepreneurs. Out of the total respondents who mentioned that more Indians are seeking job opportunities in India, 28 per cent believe that maximum job opportunities are in IT/Telecom and Manufacturing sector.

Nearly 60 per cent of all the organisations also said that they are experiencing an influx of human capital from foreign shores in an earlier TimesJobs.com study. With 37 per cent of them reporting that the workforce inflow is maximum at the middle level.

TimesJobs.com data also indicates that there has been a drop in the number of applications for international positions. It dropped by 4 per cent in Jan’14 from an average 1 per cent increase in Nov-Dec’13. However, during Jan-Mar’14 it did register an overall increase on 3 per cent.

Why are they coming back?

Besides the fear of global uncertainty, it is the lure of job security and better future prospects that are bringing the talent back home, believe 58 per cent of the surveyed organisations. Good salary combined with benefits (extra allowances and perks is also playing a major role in bringing back the professionals to India, said 25 per cent of the employers in the TimesJobs.com study.

Where are the opportunities? 

Maximum job opportunities are in Manufacturing and Petrochemicals sector. Since, these sectors will be witnessing a huge number of workforce getting retired in the next 5 years, they are on a look out for experienced candidates, revealed experts in the TimesJobs.com RecruiteX report. For senior/leadership positions international exposure is deemed crucial, hence, the returning workforce has bright chances getting top jobs in these sectors. 

The Western perspective…

While the candidates are apprehensive about taking up a job in the international market, the global employers are still vying for Indian talent. TimesJobs.com data shows that across international locations, engineers, IT and accounting & finance professionals are most sought after. Demand is huge for talent with 5-10 years of experience, followed by 10-20 years of experience. UAE and North America have emerged as the most active global locations.

According to Jappreet Sethi, HR consultant and author of humanresourcesblog.in, “Whilst the western economy is slowly getting back on track, the number of people without a good job remains high. There are enough stories of Indians losing jobs and having to move back to base country for newer opportunities. India is seeing a good influx of talent, which is well adept in systems and processes.”

R P Yadav, chairman and managing director, Genius Consultants Ltd shares a similar point of view, “Job seekers are finding it difficult to get a lucrative job in the west. They are also apprehensive about the continuity of the job at hand. India seems a better place in terms of job security, plus they are closer home. Therefore, most of them are seeking a job in India and are cautious to move to the west.”

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Are there enough Big Data experts in the Indian market?

While opportunities are growing at different levels, talent shortage is definitely a cause of concern in the Big Data market. Over the years, the importance of big data for businesses might have grown, but talent remains the biggest constraint – resulting in a slower adaptation of data by businesses.

According to McKinsey, the US alone faces a shortage of approximately 200,000 people with analytical expertise and 1.5 million managers and analysts with the skills to understand and make decisions based on the analysis of big data. Experts feel that India is equally deficient as far as talent shortage in big data is concerned.

“It’s important to first bridge the existing skills gaps before going ahead with other problems around big data,” says Srinivasan Govindarajulu, senior director and practice head – Enterprise Information Management in a recently organised Techgig.com webinar.

It’s also crucial to highlight the convergence of different big data technologies and disciplines in order to gauge the actual talent requirement. “In today’s world, cloud mobility and social data and analytics are throwing up a lot of big data opportunities. Big data opportunities are basically transforming three things – creating a new data driven culture, understanding customers better and optimising technology investments,” he adds.

Broadly speaking, analysts are classified into three categories – analytical experts (10%), analytical professionals (20%), and analytical amateurs (70%). Analytical experts are responsible for creating algorithms, analytical professionals on the other hand are responsible for using visual tools and develop models, and lastly the amateurs can use spreadsheets.

The highest level of analytical expert faces the biggest challenge in terms of competencies. People, who can actually create algorithms, know what kind of problems exists and the type of solutions that can be provided for the same. However, there’s a dearth of these analytical experts in the Big Data industry, believe experts.

Big data brings new roles such as chief analytics officer, data scientist, big data architect, data visualiser, data steward, statistical modeler, quantitative analyst, machine learning expert, etc. Some of these roles are purely data oriented and there are roles which are used to connect different processes within the business.

Keeping these roles in mind, some of the common big data teams in an organisation are: architects, analysts, DWBI project manager, application specialist, domain experts, technical administrator, etc.

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Jalebi among world's most fattening foods

Indian sweet jalebi among world's most fattening foods (Thinkstock Photos/Getty Images)

Jalebi is one of the favourite sweets of Indians, but it has featured on an American news website's list of fattening food items across the globe.

Huffingtonpost.com has come out with the following list of unhealthy dishes in the world:

Jalebi, India: Jalebi is a deep-fried dough that is soaked in a sugary syrup. This plain fried dough is unhealthy on its own.

Calzone, Italy: A traditional calzone uses the same amount of dough as an entire pizza-which serves four people. The Campania region of Italy gave birth to this version of pizza that is even unhealthier than the original. In a calzone, tomatoes, mozzarella and other traditional pizza toppings are stuffed into an easy-to-eat dough pocket and then served.

Acaraje, Brazil: A mere tablespoon of palm oil contains seven grams of saturated fat that makes the food taste great but is bad for health. Brazil's acaraje is a black-eyed peas formed into a ball, deep-fried in palm oil, and then stuffed with spicy pastes made from dried shrimp, ground cashews and more palm oil.

Churros, Spain: A popular way for locals here to start the day is with a meal of churros. These are fried-dough pastries which are dipped in sugar and cinnamon and then dipped in a thick hot-chocolate drink.

Khachapuri, Georgia: It's a bread bowl that is stuffed with melted cheese and topped with an egg and a large pad of butter.

Nutella crepes, France: Two tablespoons of sweet chocolaty Nutella spread has 200 calories (110 of which are from fat). Many street carts and restaurants there fry up batter in butter and make thin pancake-like pockets which deliver Nutella. The crepes are usually topped with powdered sugar and sometimes even whipped cream.

Deep-fried Mars bars, Scotland: A Mars bar which is deep-fried is a melted chocolate bar. The Mars candy company feels that the deep-fried dessert is not in line with the company's goal of promoting a 'healthy and active' lifestyle.

Ramen, Japan: Ramen has exploded in popularity over the last few years. It is a traditional Japanese soup dish consisting of noodles in broth, topped with a variety of meats and vegetables. Soup is basically a health food but the broth is made with beef, lard and oil that really packs a fat punch even if the noodles aren't fried
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Flipkart makes it mandatory for all top executives to take customer calls

The online retailer has made it mandatory for all top executives including directors to spend one day a month handling customer calls.

MUMBAI: The next time you call Flipkart's customer service to change the delivery date or complain about a product, the agent calming your frayed nerves could be Sachin Bansal, its founder and chief executive. From this week, the online retailer has made it mandatory for all top executives including directors to spend one day a month handling customer calls. 

Co-founder and chief operating officer Binny Bansal had his first session few days ago. 

The customer Binny Bansal spoke to wanted her shoes replaced with a similar pair of larger size. Bansal guided the customer to place for replacement request on the site itself. 

In fact, he had delivered a product to a customer as well a few weeks ago. The COO did not introduce himself, but just went with the delivery man. However, the delivery job has not been made compulsory for the senior team. 

Need to understand customer issues
"My takeaway from the call was that we can do a better job of communicating our return and replacement feature to customers," added Binny Bansal, the co-founder. He will face more customers next month. 

"The leadership team has expanded rapidly in the last one year. They need to understand customer issues and drive the 'customer first' message, which is why it is starting with the senior management," says Mekin Maheshwari, the chief people officer at Flipkart. 

As many as 40 of the company's 85 executives in senior roles joined last year. This top brass includes 85 directors, senior directors, VPs, SVPs, as well as the CEO and COO. 

They will be taught the turnaround time per call and will listen to different kinds of queries, learn who to escalate the calls to and then personally handle 5-10 calls on that day. With time, it will be less of theory and more calls. 

"There was a mail from co-founder Binny Bansal to the senior management last week detailing the process and its importance. Binny Bansal has already spent one day taking calls," said a company executive who did not want to be named. 

Called 'Customer Connect' in the inner circles of the company, each manager will be given their customer satisfaction scores, like their customer service executives get. Although taking calls had been part of the company's three-day induction process from 2009 to 2011, not all went through it, because it was not compulsory. 

The senior management is getting prepared to handle irate customers, change orders and cater to many requests. Camille Gonsalves, senior director for corporate communications at Flipkart, spent a day taking calls when she joined the company three months ago. She had to pacify a customer who wanted her garment shipment to reach before the due date because she was leaving town. 

"It takes a while to get used to it. The calls got recorded and feedback was given to us and one gets to understand the entire backend process," says Gonsalves. But what Gonsalves expected to be part of an induction has now become a monthly affair and she will head for her next call session this May. Flipkart with its headcount of 10,000, including contract and supply-chain staff, has been on a hiring spree across levels in the past few years. 

At IITs, the multi-category retailer offered jobs to 118 students from batch 2014. At B-schools, Flipkart offered 50-55 jobs and 30-35 of such offers were made at IIMs this time. 

The company had boosted its coffers last year by raising $360 million (Rs 2,160 crore) in two rounds and was valued at around $1.6 billion in July. ET reported earlier this month that Flipkart is in final talks to buy rival e-commerce firm Myntra for about $400 million (Rs 2,400 crore). The company reached its $1-billion sales mark this March, a year ahead of the target
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Digital mapping may be Nokia's gem

For the first time in more than three decades, Nokia faces the future without being a player in the global phone business. 

BERLIN: For the first time in more than three decades, Nokia faces the future without being a player in the global phone business. The company has completed the sale of its beleaguered handset business to Microsoft for $7.5 billion. 

The deal's closing puts a spotlight on what remains of Nokia, which includes the Finnish company's mobile networking business and a research and intellectual property unit. But it is Nokia's efforts to map the entire world digitally that could prove to be the company's hidden gem — or at least emerge as a compelling, multibillion-dollar takeover target. 

Nokia's goal with its mapping system, known as Here and developed in Berlin, is simple but ambitious: To build the world's most detailed and up-to-date digital maps. 

In smartphones, Here is outgunned by Google Maps, which has an estimated 1 billion mobile users and is aided by being standard issue on phones using Google's Android operating system. Here, which is the default mapping application on Windows phones, has only about 100 million smartphone users. 

In automobile mapping, however, Here dominates, with more than 80% of the global market for built-in car navigation systems — a field in which Google and Apple are scrambling to catch up. 

Nokia contends that its mapping products, which are updated 2.7 million times a day, are more accurate than its rivals' offerings and that its ability to customize its maps for different customers sets Nokia apart. 

Google, for its part, counters that it makes tens of thousands of changes to its maps daily and that it uses complex algorithms and external information from the likes of the US Census Bureau to build maps for 198 countries. 

While rivals like Apple have tried to break into the global mapping business, they have so far been largely unsuccessful, leaving Nokia's 29-year-old Here mapping system as the only contender for companies and consumers looking for an alternative to Google. 

"Mapping is an expensive business," said Annette Zimmermann, an analyst at technology research company Gartner in Munich. "If you haven't already built what these guys have built, it doesn't make sense to start now." 

Despite the strong position, though, Nokia's mapping unit last year generated only 7%, or $1.2 billion, of the company's total revenue, excluding its handset unit, according to corporate filings. The division also reported an operating loss of $212 million over the same period, as the company continued to invest in the mapping operation, which has 6,000 employees, or around 11% of Nokia's remaining workforce of 55,000. 

The weak financial figures have led many analysts to question whether the company has the deep pockets required to keep pace in mapping, especially since it has few existing connections to Nokia's other businesses. Besides its auto clients, Nokia licenses Here to companies including Microsoft, for its Bing search engine; to Amazon, for the Kindle Fire tablet; and to Yahoo for its Flickr photo service. FedEx uses Here mapping data to manage its delivery trucks worldwide. 

Already, there is talk that Nokia could decide either to sell or to spin off the division, so the company can focus on its core mobile networking business. The networking unit, which manufacturers cellphone towers and other telecommunications hardware for carriers, will generate almost 90% of the company's annual revenue after the handset deal is closed. That means Here might be more valuable to someone else than to Nokia. 

"There are only a few mapping businesses in the world," said Ehud Gelblum, a Citigroup analyst. "It's a valuable asset." 

Microsoft fought to buy the unit as part of the recent handset sale. But it could not agree with Nokia on a price, according to several people with direct knowledge of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. 

Analysts say that Nokia's mapping division, whose price tag could reach more than $6 billion, might be attractive to the likes of Samsung and other large handset-makers to reduce their dependence on Android for smartphones and tablets. 

Currently, phone-makers rely on Google for their mapping services. 

Michael Halbherr, the head of Nokia's mapping business, shrugs off the takeover talk, saying that Here remains part of the company's overall strategy. 

"Every company has an owner, and for us, it's Nokia," Halbherr, 49, said in his office in central Berlin. "It's only a good thing to be part of a large organization." 

For now, at least, Here continues to be a major effort at Nokia. 

Daily updates to Nokia's map data are part of the company's efforts to maintain close ties with the world's largest carmakers, links that generate more than 50% of the mapping division's yearly revenue. 

In the auto industry, Nokia still commands the bulk of the market, thanks to relationships with giants including Toyota and Volkswagen. Google and Apple are trying to have their maps used in cars, but they have not yet had much luck, according to Gartner, the research company. 

"There are a lot of applications for what we're doing," said Reno Marioni, an American who runs Nokia's crowd mapping business, which feeds changes made by users into the company's products. "Mapping the world is a pretty big thing.
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Apple profit still climbs, but pressure is growing

Apple’s remarkable growth streak — now more than a decade old — is starting to fade a little.

SAN FRANCISCO: Apple's remarkable growth streak — now more than a decade old — is starting to fade a little. 

Apple recently reported that its revenue for the last quarter climbed 5%, to $45.6 billion, from $43.6 billion in the same period the year earlier. The company's earnings were up about 7%, to $10.2 billion, from $9.5 billion in the same quarter a year ago. 

Although the results beat expectations, the company's rate of profit and revenue growth has slowed considerably in recent quarters. The slowdown has put pressure on Timothy D Cook, the company's chief executive, to release products in new categories — perhaps with a so-called smartwatch or even an Apple television. 

At its earnings call, Apple resorted to other means to at least temporarily please investors concerned about the pace of growth. 

The company said it would buy $30 billion of its stock in addition to the $60 billion it announced last year. It also raised its quarterly dividend by 8% and said it would split its stock. 

In after-hours trading, Apple's shares were up 7.6%. 

In a call with analysts, Cook said the increased buyback was "a signal of the board and management team's strong confidence in the future of Apple." 

Carl C Icahn, the activist investor who has repeatedly clamored for Apple to increase its buyback programme, expressed his satisfaction with the change on Twitter. "Believe we'll also be happy when we see new products," he wrote. 

The company sold 43.7 million iPhones — up from 37.4 million in the same period last year. But sales of its iPads, at 16.35 million, were slightly down, from 19.5 million last year, despite a major redesign for one of the iPads introduced in the fall. 

It was almost certain that Apple's stratospheric rise, largely on the back of the iPhone, would plateau. It is the law of large numbers. 

"If Apple grew the next five years like it did the previous five years, it would be approaching the GDP of Australia," said Toni Sacconaghi, an analyst at Sanford C Bernstein. 

Still, investors have come to expect big jumps from Apple. For years, Apple has blazed new trails for the tech industry with its iPhones and iPads. 

"Psychologically, it's more the issue that here is this incredibly high-flying company two years ago growing at 50% or more," Sacconaghi said. 

The big question that hovers over the company is whether it can regain that momentum. 

Apple's iPad sales are slowing down much faster than many expected. It sold about 3 million fewer iPads in the last quarter than it did in the same period last year. Apple said the result was mostly related to supply changes. 

But Apple's competitors, like Amazon and Samsung Electronics, offer much cheaper tablets, and that may also be stifling the iPad's growth. Many cheap tablets that cost half as much as an iPad, like Amazon's Kindle Fire, have improved in quality, said Tero Kuittinen, managing director at Frank N Magid Associates, a strategic consulting firm. 

"Many people would argue that the quality of the $200 tablet has improved radically," Kuittinen said. "At the same time, Apple decided to pick and hold the line on premium pricing and clearly it's undermining unit growth." 

Still, Cook said on the earnings call that he was optimistic about the iPad's growth. He said that market share was not an accurate depiction of the device's success. 

More than 90% of tablets used by enterprise companies, and 95% of the tablets used by schools, are iPads, and customer satisfaction with iPads remains high, he said. 

"What it means to me is that the trend over time, over the arc of time, that things look very, very good, that iPad has a great future," Cook said. 

Apple had strong growth from iPhone sales, selling about 6 million more during the quarter than it did in the same period last year. Apple said its recent partnership with China Mobile, the biggest phone carrier in the world, helped sales. 

Sales of the iPhone pushed the company above Wall Street expectations. Analysts had expected revenue of $43.5 billion and profit of $10.18 billion, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters. 

Still, smartphone sales are slowing down industrywide, notably in China, which may pose a potential problem for Apple. Smartphone sales there are expected to grow only 20% this year, compared with growth of 60% in 2013, according to the research firm IDC. Many people with stable incomes have already bought smartphones there. 

Cook seemed confident that the iPhone would continue to find growth. He said that the older iPhone 4S was helping attract first-time iPhone buyers in emerging markets like China and Vietnam. 

Apple's iPhone sales were also up in developed markets like the United States, France and Germany, he said. 

Apple also sold 4.1 million Macs over the quarter, roughly flat compared with last year. 

The spring quarter should be tougher for Apple. The company is widely expected to introduce new iPhones with larger screens this fall, so many consumers may be holding out on buying iPhones until those models come out. 

"That's when the pressure is going to be the most intense," Kuittinen said
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Process of recovery of dues from Kingfisher on, SBI chief says

BANGALORE: State Bank of India chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya on Saturday said the process of recovery of dues from Vijay Mallya-promoted Kingfisher Airlines is going on, "but there are legal challenges." 

"Kingfisher is currently a non-operative account and we don't want to discuss individual accounts. Whatever are the steps necessary for recovery, they are going on, but there are some steps that will take time because there is a legal system to negotiate with, and obviously there are legal challenges. So we are looking at that," she told reporters here. 

SBI leads a 17-member consortium of lenders that is trying to recover dues running into over Rs 7,500 crore in principal alone from Kingfisher Airlines. SBI has the maximum exposure of Rs 1,600 crore to the airline, which has been grounded since October 2012. Asked how much the bank has recovered from the sale of Kingfisher Airlines' shares, she said, "Nothing very much. I think the recovery is in the range of Rs 350 to Rs 400 crore." 

Asked about recovering the balance, she said, "I have fully provided from our profits." 

SBI Capital Markets Ltd has been tasked by the consortium of lenders to recover their dues. 

Punjab National Bank and IDBI Bank each have an exposure of Rs 800 crore each to Kingfisher, Bank of India Rs 650 crore and Bank of Baroda Rs 550 crore. 

Among the others, United Bank of India has Rs 430 crore, Central Bank of India (Rs 410 crore), Uco Bank (Rs 320 crore), Corporation Bank (Rs 310 crore), State Bank of Mysore, (Rs 150 crore), Indian Overseas Bank (Rs 140 crore), Federal Bank (Rs 90 crore), Punjab & Sind Bank (Rs 60 crore) and Axis Bank (Rs 50 crore). 

Lenders outside the consortium are Srei Infrastructure Finance (Rs 430 crore), Jammu & Kashmir Bank (Rs 80 crore) and Oriental Bank of Commerce (Rs 50 crore).

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