Photo by Steven Lelham on Unsplash
For a company that is under investigation for monopoly behavior, Google doesn’t seem to be very concerned. Google announced its intention to purchase smartwatch company FitBit for $2.1B. Rumors are that Google will leverage the information collected by the watches for their health services division. They are also looking to expand their Wear OS platform.
Meanwhile the drama over the Pentagon’s JEDI contract continues. Reports emerged that President Donald Trump gave orders to “screw” Amazon out of the deal. Personally, I am more interested in Oracle’s next steps since they have been so vocal about Amazon’s perceived preference in the bidding process.
Acquisitions/Investments
- Google reportedly in talks to acquire Fitbit
Reuters says the deal is still being negotiated and could still fall apart, but if it came together, it would surely strengthen Google’s position in the wearables space, an area where it has struggled despite its efforts around smartwatches and Wear OS.
With Wear OS, Google only focused on the smartwatch market, though, and while many of these devices have fitness tracking built-in, either through third-party apps or Google’s own Fit app, there’s still a large market for dedicated (and cheaper) fitness trackers. Fitbit, meanwhile, has been stepping up its smartwatch features with its Versa line, which does not use Wear OS.
https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/28/google-reportedly-in-talks-to-acquire-fitbit/
Google to Buy Fitbit, Amping Up Wearables RaceGoogle reached a deal to buy wearable fitness products company Fitbit Inc. for roughly $2.1 billion, a move that intensifies the battle among technology giants to capture consumers through devices other than smartphones.
For Google, the deal marks a further push into consumer electronics, an area where it has yet to gain significant traction to complement its massive internet-search and advertising business. It also puts Google in renewed and direct competition with Apple Inc., which this week said rising sales of wearables and related services were becoming a bigger driver of its earnings.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/fitbit-to-be-acquired-by-google-llc-11572613473
Artificial Intelligence
- AI will not be job killer – IBM research
The report acknowledges that AI has only just begun to transform work and that the rate of change is likely to accelerate. But, IBM – which is at the vanguard of AI – says that workers have time to adapt by learning or honing skills that require innovation, creative thinking, or deep insight and experience.
“As new technologies continue to scale within businesses and across industries, it is our responsibility as innovators to understand not only the business process implications, but also the societal impact,” says Martin Fleming, chief economist, IBM. “To that end, this empirical research from the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab sheds new light on how tasks are reorganizing between people and machines as a result of AI and new technologies.”
https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/34680/ai-will-not-be-job-killer—ibm-research
Cloud
- Trump Ordered Mattis to “Screw Amazon” Out of Pentagon Contract, Book Alleges
Few thought Microsoft would beat out Amazon for the massive contract, and legal analysts said the president’s role in the procurement will almost certainly become the subject of litigation.
“It’s crystal clear here that the President of the United States did not want this contract to be awarded to one of the competitors,” said Franklin Turner, an attorney with the law firm McCarter & English. “As a result it’s fairly likely that we will see a number of challenges that the procurement was not conducted on a level playing field.”
- Even after Microsoft wins, JEDI saga could drag on
They went to court. The judge dismissed their claims that involved both the procurement process and that a former Amazon employee, who was hired by the DoD, was involved in the process of creating the RFP. They claimed that the former employee was proof that the deal was tilted toward Amazon. The judge disagreed and dismissed their complaints.
What Oracle could never admit was that it simply didn’t have the same cloud chops as Microsoft and Amazon, the two finalists. It couldn’t be that they were late to the cloud or had a fraction of the market share that Amazon and Microsoft had. It had to be the process or that someone was boxing them out.
https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/28/even-after-microsoft-wins-jedi-saga-could-drag-on/
- SAP Deepens Embrace of Microsoft Azure Cloud
As part of an effort to make it simpler to deploy ERP applications in the cloud, SAP and Microsoft last week announced they have extended their existing alliance to provide tighter integrations between S/4 ERP applications running on the SAP HANA database deployed on the Microsoft Azure cloud.
These integrations and reference architectures will reduce the amount of time and effort required to deploy S/4 on the Microsoft Azure cloud in addition to streamlining the support process, says David Robinson, senior vice president and managing director of SAP’s cloud business group.
https://www.rtinsights.com/sap-deepens-embrace-of-microsoft-azure-cloud/
Security/Privacy
- Maps Incognito is launching for Google Maps Android Users
When Incognito mode is on, Maps will not:
- Save your browse or search history, or send you notifications
- Update your Location History or shared location, if any
- Use your personal data to personalize Maps
Turning on Incognito mode in Maps does not affect how your activity is used or saved by internet providers, other apps, voice search, and other Google services.
Other
- Google, in Rare Stumble, Posts 23% Decline in Profit
Alphabet reported that its revenue rose 20 percent to $40.5 billion for the third quarter, but that profit dropped to $7.07 billion. Profit, which missed Wall Street forecasts, was hurt by rising costs for research and development and marketing, the company said.
In after-hours trading, Alphabet’s stock declined 2 percent.
The performance demonstrated the challenges of trying to maintain growth at the company and showed how Google must invest to keep that up. While advertising, rooted in the dominance of Google’s internet search engine, has sustained Alphabet’s bottom line in recent years, that business isn’t growing as fast as it once did. Google is also facing new competition for marketing dollars from Amazon and others.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/28/technology/google-alphabet-earnings.html
- Don’t Look Now, But GE Is Getting Somewhere
In releasing its third-quarter results on Wednesday, GE also raised its guidance for 2019 free cash flow and now anticipates its industrial businesses could bring in as much as $2 billion this year. That’s a $4 billion swing from GE’s worst-case scenario in its initial March forecast. There’s a fine line between setting a low bar and sandbagging the numbers, but GE’s rosier outlook is supported by signs of stabilization in its beleaguered power unit and there being less of a drag than anticipated from the transition of a supply-chain financing program to a third party. The aviation business was also able to largely offset the negative impact of the continued grounding of Boeing Co.’s 737 Max. Those were key worry points that ended up not being as worrisome.
- SoftBank is turning to its Sprint leaders to bail out WeWork—they’ll need to do better this time
There’s little reason to believe Son, Claure and Fisher can use their Sprint playbook to give WeWork investors and employees confidence in their future success, said Craig Moffett, a telecommunications analyst at MoffettNathanson.
“Sprint has been an unmitigated disaster,” said Moffett. “Sprint has contracted steadily since SoftBank bought it, even in a growing wireless market. Their only hope for an exit is to pray their deal to sell it to T-Mobile is approved.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/26/softbank-taking-masayoshi-sons-sprint-playbook-to-wework.html
