Supplier Report: 8/4/2017

Apple and Amazon are starting to feel the weight of China’s data restrictions.  Apple was forced to remove VPN software from the Chinese app store.  AWS customers are being told they can no long bypass China’s data restrictions with software and VPN services.

Both companies know that China is critical to their long term growth, so for now, they have to play nice.

Amazon is also starting to get the US government’s attention regarding competition.  Can Jeff Bezos avoid President Trump’s attacks over Amazon’s market position?

Acquisitions

  • Sprint could sell pieces to Comcast and Charter before attempting T-Mobile merger

    Details are scarce, but the deal isn’t likely to be a full-on merger, according to a Reuters source. Instead, Sprint would likely be selling a minority stake to the ISPs in exchange for providing access to its network infrastructure. Think hotspots, last mile service, non-compete agreements, that sort of thing.

    The cash from the deal would allow a still SoftBank-controlled Sprint to invest a bit more, and possibly give it some leverage in its merger negotiations with T-Mobile.

    https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/28/sprint-could-sell-pieces-to-comcast-and-charter-before-attempting-t-mobile-merger/?ncid=rss
    Update: Charter Says It Isn’t Interested in Acquiring Sprint

    On Sunday, Charter rejected the merger idea and indicated it would stick with an existing wireless reseller agreement with Verizon Communications Inc. —known as an MVNO pact—rather than switch to one with Sprint.

    “We understand why a deal is attractive for SoftBank, but Charter has no interest in acquiring Sprint,” Charter spokesman Alex Dudley said in an emailed statement. “We have a very good MVNO relationship with Verizon and intend to launch wireless services to cable customers next year.”

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/charter-says-it-isnt-interested-in-acquiring-sprint-1501466664

  • SoftBank Bets $250 Million on Small-Business Lender Kabbage

    SoftBank Group has invested $250 million to take a stake in online small-business lending startup Kabbage Inc.

    Kabbage was previously valued at $1 billion in a 2015 equity round, according to reporting by The Wall Street Journal. Robert Frohwein, the Atlanta-based company’s chief executive, said the new deal, a strategic-growth investment, marks “a material increase in the share price,” without giving specifics.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/softbank-bets-250-million-on-small-business-lender-kabbage-1501756200

Artificial Intelligence

  • A Robot Can Be a Warehouse Worker’s Best Friend

    Deutsche Post AG’s DHL is testing “swarming” robots at a facility in Memphis, Tenn. These machines help workers pick out medical devices that need to be shipped quickly. Quiet Logistics Inc., which fulfills online orders for retailers like Bonobos and Inditex SA’s Zara, uses the same type of mobile robots in one of its warehouses.

    Known as “collaborative” robots, they are small and relatively cheap—costing tens of thousands of dollars—compared with miles of conveyor belts and automation systems that run into the tens of millions. The new robots are designed with the majority of warehouses world-wide in mind, where orders continue to be fulfilled manually by people pushing carts up and down aisles.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-robot-can-be-a-warehouse-workers-best-friend-1501752600

Cloud

  • Amazon Cloud Customers Are Told: Don’t Bypass China’s Internet Gates

    Customers of Amazon, along with those of Apple Inc., AAPL 4.73% are facing pressure in China to comply with the Chinese government’s desire to further tighten the screws on its already heavily policed internet.

    On Saturday, Apple removed software from its app store in China that allowed users to circumvent the country’s web filters. The Cupertino, Calif., technology company cited new rules that require providers of VPNs, which are often used to get around Chinese internet firewalls, to obtain licenses from regulators.

    Complaints of disruptions affecting users of overseas VPNs in China have multiplied recently. Facebook Inc.’s encrypted WhatsApp messaging service has also been affected, with users finding it difficult or extremely slow to send messages.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-cloud-customers-are-told-dont-bypass-chinas-internet-gates-1501626197

  • What is Motley Fool’s Accuracy on SAP Overtaking Oracle in Cloud?

    SAP and Oracle have fiscal calendars which end at different times of the year, but taking the latest 12 months of results for each company shows that SAP is growing at a much faster rate than Oracle. As a German company, SAP also reports its results in euros. Converting those figures to U.S. dollars results in annual cloud revenue of over $2.5 billion.

    http://www.scmfocus.com/saaseconomy/2017/07/23/motley-fools-accuracy-sap-overtaking-oracle-cloud/

  • Oracle delivers bevy of updates to its cloud suite

    The latest version certainly has a more modern look and feel, and that was the idea, says Steve Miranda, executive vice president of applications development at Oracle. Miranda says it’s a brand new experience compared to the previous version of the software. The company not only overhauled the design, it also wanted to improve workflows, working to take out unnecessary steps when possible.

    What’s more, Oracle has turned to a responsive design approach, where the interface adjusts depending on screen size. It’s a marked improvement over the previous mobile experience, Miranda says, which used different colors and visualizations and a different navigation paradigm. He says previously they had some apps designed specifically for mobile, but some simply were presented in the browser, and didn’t always translate well to a smaller screen. Today’s update is designed to address that.

    https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/02/oracle-makes-bevy-of-updates-to-its-cloud-suite/?ncid=rss

  • Could Amazon’s cloudy appetite crush your startup dreams?

    Not only does AWS (and Amazon) have a voracious appetite for new markets, but once it enters a market, it is both content with and adept at running at razor-thin margins. AWS margins have buoyed up the company’s overall profitability lately, but make no mistake: If Bezos sees a long-term opportunity to own a valuable market, he’s going to cut prices (and costs) relentlessly to do so.

    Competing with AWS, in short, is brutal.

    http://www.techrepublic.com/article/could-amazons-cloudy-appetite-crush-your-startup-dreams/

Datacenter

  • Samsung topples Intel as world’s largest chipmaker

    But Samsung didn’t get there by outselling processors — it’s been diversifying its chip offerings for years. While Intel has focused on CPUs for computers and servers after burying its wearables division last November, Samsung has broadened into making chips for mobile devices, as well as connected chips for IoT and smart vehicles. But the company also got ahead of Intel on the strength of its flash memory with more popular SSD products. Intel isn’t giving up on the rivalry, and claimed its next generation of long-delayed Cannon Lake 10nm chips will feature twice as many transistors as Samsung’s or TMSC’s, putting them “light years” ahead.

    https://www.engadget.com/2017/07/28/samsung-topples-intel-as-world-s-largest-chipmaker/

  • IBM’s new palm-sized tape prototype can store 330 terabytes of data

    Despite the fact that consumers have transitioned through several storage technologies over the past few decades to the high-speed, flash-based drives of today, tape still finds usage in long-term and high-capacity storage. While commercially available magnetic tape cartridges offer up to 15TB of storage, IBM and Sony have created a new standard that’s capable of storing as much as 330TB in a much smaller form factor.

    To give that some context, IBM suggests that such a cartridge would be able to store as many as 330 million books in a form factor the same size as your palm. The last generation of the same sort of tape technology could ‘only’ handle 220 million.

    https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/ibm-sony-magnetic-tape-330tb-storage/

Other

  • Amazon’s stock falters after missing profit target by $1 a share

    Revenue at the online retailer rose 24.8 percent to $37.6 billion, while net income declined to 40 cents a share from $1.87 a share a year ago. Analysts were expecting Amazon to see revenue of $37.2 billion and net income of $1.42 a share in the quarter. The company also forecast an operating income of $300 million to a loss of $400 million for the current quarter.

    Amazon has been expanding into countries like India, which has been taking its toll on margins. The operating loss of its international operations rose more than fivefold to $742 million, while international revenue rose by only 17 percent. Revenue in North America, by contrast, rose by a more robust 27 percent.

    https://venturebeat.com/2017/07/27/amazons-stock-falters-after-missing-profit-target-by-1-a-share/

  • After Meg Whitman’s exit, Uber’s CEO search is down to only male candidates — as its board struggles and Travis Kalanick meddles

    But once he returned from the South Seas, his ardor for meddling in the company did not end. According to numerous insiders, the pugnacious entrepreneur has continued to try to involve himself in daily operating decisions, so much so that top execs have been mulling how to get help from the board to rein him in.

    “It’s not stopped,” said one top exec about Kalanick up in the grill of the operating group that is running Uber. “None of us know what to do since it is Travis.”

    In addition, to cut off Kalanick’s access, the Uber board has reinforced a policy that all directors get the same limited access to information about Uber’s ongoing operations. “We have had to put guardrails on him,” said one person involved. “Even if he keeps trying to break through them.”

    https://www.recode.net/2017/7/30/16066332/uber-ceo-search-travis-kalanick-meg-whitman-steve-jobs-board

Photo: Liming Huang