Microsoft expands footprint in Qatar with new office. 1 other story and a trivia

This line-up of stories will help you discover the latest happenings around the tech world, today

1. Microsoft expands footprint in Qatar with new office

American multinational technology corporation, Microsoft has on Monday announced an expansion to Arabian country, Qatar.

Lana Khalaf, general manager at Microsoft Qatar, confirmed the opening of a new Lusail City facility, in a statement seen by Ripples Nigeria.

According to Khalaf, the facility will include a customer innovation center that will host innovation and ideation workshops to inspire groundbreaking solutions that can spur transformation across industries in Qatar.

With the new facility, the Arabian country, which is known for its futuristic skyscrapers and other ultramodern architecture inspired by ancient Islamic design, is set to host the company’s fourth and largest branch in the country.

Khalaf said in a statement:

“In designing the new office, we were guided by two main principles. The first was our determination to provide the best workplace for our employees, offering a highly engaging, inclusive, and flexible environment that leverages the latest modern work technologies to create future-proof smart workspaces.

“The second was sustainability, to deliver the first office to be certified on the highest sustainability standards in the Middle East. I am extremely proud to say that we delivered on both of those objectives – while prioritising the focus on customers with our customer innovation centre.”

Ripples Nigeria gathered that high-ranking representatives from the US Embassy in Qatar will attend the official launching of the Microsoft cloud data center.

Tech Trivia: Which of the following best describes pharming?
A Installing spyware on multiple computers
B Directing users to fake websites
C Attempting to hack into a secure server
D Using another person’s Internet connection without their knowledge
Answer: see end of post

Read also:Nigerian edtech startup, Kibo, secures $2m seed. 2 other stories and a trivia

2. Indian merchant commerce startup, Pine Labs, acquires Setu

An Indian merchant commerce startup, Pine Labs, has announced acquiring an API-based startup, Setu.

The latest acquisition was confirmed by Sahil Kini, Setu’s co-founder, in a media release on Monday.

Setu was launched in 2018 by Sahil Kini and Nikhil Kumar with headquarters in Bengaluru.

The API-based startup provides low-cost Application Programming Interface (API) infrastructure to businesses launching onboarding, payments, deposits, lending, and data services “in a matter of days, not months”.

Pine Labs, founded in 1998, is an Indian company that provides financing and last-mile retail transaction technology.

Speaking on the acquisition, Kini noted that the development will provide great results in personal finance management for their clients.

He said: “We believe democratisation of technology will yield better results when it comes to making financial products accessible to all and therefore have our APIs open for the developer community.

“Pine Labs’ network of merchants and issuers coupled with our API integration prowess will help achieve, monitoring loans to predict default rates, credit underwriting, and several other areas.”

Though the terms of the deal were not disclosed by the firms, however, Ripples Nigeria gathered that the deal is worth between $70-75 million for Pine Labs.

Trivia answer: Directing users to fake websites

Pharming is yet another way hackers attempt to manipulate users on the Internet.

While phishing attempts to capture personal information by getting users to visit a fake website, pharming redirects users to false websites without them even knowing it.

By Kayode Hamsat

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