Category: Supplier Report

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Supplier Report: 1/31/2020


Photo by Aziz Acharki on Unsplash

Google is once again in the news for negative reasons. The company quietly rolled out changes to their search results that could mislead users to click on ads. After a media backlash, the search giant reversed course.

The drama between Xerox and HP continues as Xerox refuses to take no for an answer. HP is blaming Carl Icahn for the aggressive (and seemingly never-ending) acquisition attempts.

Finally, India has taken umbrage with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos due to Washington Post coverage of the Indian Government and for Amazon’s investment strategies in the country.

Acquisitions/Investments

  • Xerox wants to replace HP board that rejected takeover bid

    Xerox and HP have been playing a highly public game of tit for tat in recent months. Xerox wants very much to combine with HP, and offered $34 billion, an offer HP summarily rejected at the end of last year. Xerox threatened to take it to shareholders.

    HP was none too pleased with this latest move by Xerox. “We believe these nominations are a self-serving tactic by Xerox to advance its proposal, that significantly undervalues HP and creates meaningful risk to the detriment of HP shareholders,” HP fired back in a statement today emailed to TechCrunch.

    It went on to blame Xerox shareholder Carl Icahn for the continued pressure. “We believe that Xerox’s proposal and nominations are being driven by Carl Icahn, and his large ownership position in Xerox means that his interests are not aligned with those of other HP shareholders. Due to Mr. Icahn’s ownership position, he would disproportionately benefit from an acquisition of HP by Xerox at a price that undervalues HP,” the company stated.

    https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/23/xerox-wants-to-replace-hp-board-that-rejected-takeover-bid/

  • Hedge Funds Are Oddly Silent in Toshiba Buyout Drama

    Here’s a quick recap: As part of its Toshiba Next Plan, the company said in November that it planned to buy out shareholders in three subsidiaries for $1.8 billion, one of them being chip-equipment maker NuFlare Technology Inc. Tokyo-based Hoya Corp. put in a higher, unsolicited bid for NuFlare, seeking a minimum 66.7% stake. Toshiba Machine Co., which partly owns NuFlare, brushed off the hostile approach and went with the lower bid.

    On Tuesday, a fund backed by activist investor Yoshiaki Murakami launched a tender offer for a 44% stake in Toshiba Machine, in an apparent effort to disrupt the consolidation. Toshiba Machine shares had surged as much as 19% Friday after the company said Murakami planned a bid. They fell Tuesday after the offer — a 12% premium to Thursday’s closing price — was lower than some investors expected.

    Yet shareholders at each of the companies — including the hedge funds that own Toshiba Corp. stock — seem to be the losers and no one is saying anything about it.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-01-21/hedge-funds-are-oddly-silent-in-toshiba-buyout-drama

Artificial Intelligence/Robotics

  • Google CEO Sundar Pichai calls for ‘sensible regulation’ of AI

    Of course, this call for “balance” leaves some questions about how tight of regulation Pichai is talking about. He doesn’t specifically rebuff the White House’s recent calls for a light touch. Nor does he suggest the EU’s more comprehensive proposals go too far.

    Instead he makes clear that having the international community come to an agreement on regulatory issues is key. Then seems to suggest that Alphabet’s own internal handling of AI could serve as a guideline. He claims that the rules and systems put in place by the company help it avoid bias, and prioritize the safety and privacy of people. Though, it is debatable how successful Alphabet has been on those fronts. He also says the company will not deploy AI “to support mass surveillance or violate human rights.” And while Google does not sell facial recognition software that could easily be abused (unlike some of its competitors), there is serious concern that Google and its ilk pose a broad threat to human rights.

    https://www.engadget.com/2020/01/20/google-ceo-sundar-pichai-ai-regulation-editorial/

Cloud

  • Epic Systems, a major medical records vendor, is warning customers it will stop working with Google Cloud

    Privately held Epic is one of the largest electronic medical record companies in the U.S. It sells its products, which include a digital equivalent of the traditional doctor’s paper medical chart as well as billing tools, into the largest hospital systems in the U.S. Epic installations are major undertakings, and can end up costing billions of dollars overall. Once installed, they become a core part of a hospital’s information systems and are seldom dislodged.

    Epic’s decision is a blow to Google’s efforts to find new customer segments for its cloud products, as the company lags well behind Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure in market share for cloud computing. The company is hoping to catch up by landing big-name customers such as Mayo Clinic, and by stressing its artificial intelligence and machine-learning capabilities.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/17/epic-systems-warns-customers-it-will-stop-supporting-google-cloud.html

Security/Privacy

  • Hospitals Give Tech Giants Access to Detailed Medical Records

    The scope of data sharing in these and other recently reported agreements reveals a powerful new role that hospitals play—as brokers to technology companies racing into the $3 trillion health-care sector. Rapid digitization of health records and privacy laws enabling companies to swap patient data have positioned hospitals as a primary arbiter of how such sensitive data is shared.

    “Hospitals are massive containers of patient data,” said Lisa Bari, a consultant and former lead for health information technology for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Innovation Center.

    Hospitals can share patient data as long as they follow federal privacy laws, which contain limited consumer protections, she said. “The data belongs to whoever has it.”

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/hospitals-give-tech-giants-access-to-detailed-medical-records-11579516200

Software/SaaS

  • SAP’s new CEOs on the threat from Oracle: ‘We are winning market share’

    The German tech giant was the subject of criticism from some customers over a decision to end support for software running on third-party databases like Oracle. Late last year, Oracle’s technology chief Larry Ellison fired criticism of his own at the firm, claiming SAP’s customer base was “up for grabs.”

    In Oracle’s second-quarter earnings call, Ellison said one of SAP’s biggest customers would go live on Oracle’s enterprise resource planning platform (ERP) in 2020. ERP is a piece of software used by firms to manage their business and automate back office functions.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/24/sap-co-ceos-on-the-threat-from-oracle-we-are-winning-market-share.html

  • Many SAP customers ‘in a bind’ says DSAG 2020 investment report but there are reasons to be cheerful

    When it comes to SAP Cloud solutions in general, 14 percent of respondents plan “large and medium-sized” investments in SuccessFactors, 13 percent in SAP Analytics Cloud, and 11 percent in C/4HANA. Ariba, Integrated Business Planning, and Concur remain in the single digits. Only SAP Analytics Cloud shows an upward trend. After the number of companies willing to make “large and medium-sized” investments rose six percent to nine percent last year, this year it has again increased four percent to 13 percent. “SAP user companies continue to invest in SAP’s cloud solutions, to expand and grow their processes outside the core. This needs to be able to happen as a standardized, uniform process, without modifications. It’s our role as DSAG, in discussion with SAP, to ensure that out-of-the-box integration and harmonized data models continue. This will then facilitate the deployment of a rapid growth product like SAP Analytics Cloud,” explains Marco Lenck.

    https://diginomica.com/many-sap-customers-bind-says-dsag-2020-investment-report-there-are-reasons-be-cheerful

  • How much longer will we trust Google’s search results?

    The new layout for search result is ugly at first glance — but then Google was always ugly until relatively recently. I very quickly learned to unconsciously take in the information from the top favicon and URL-esque info without it really distracting me.

    …Which is basically the problem. Google’s using that same design language to identify its ads instead of much more obvious, visually distinct methods. It’s consistent, I guess, but it also feels deceptive.

    Recode’s Peter Kafka recently interviewed Buzzfeed CEO Jonah Peretti, and Peretti said something really insightful: what if Google’s ads really aren’t that good? What if Google is just taking credit for clicks on ads just because people would have been searching for that stuff anyway? I’ve been thinking about it all day: what if Google ads actually aren’t that effective and the only reason they make so much is billions of people use Google?

    https://www.theverge.com/tech/2020/1/24/21079696/google-serp-design-change-altavisa-ads-trust
    Google’s latest user-hostile design change makes ads and search results look identical

    Now a user of Google’s search engine has — essentially — only a favicon between them and an unintended ad click. Squint or you’ll click it.

    This visual trickery may be fractionally less confusing in a small screen mobile environment — where Google debuted the change last year. But on a desktop screen these favicons are truly minuscule. And where to click to get actual information starts to feel like a total lottery.

    A lottery that’s being stacked in Google’s favor because confused users are likely to end up clicking more ad links than they otherwise would, meaning it cashes in at the expense of web users’ time and energy.

    https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/23/squint-and-youll-click-it/

    Update: Google backtracks on search results design

    Google on Friday responded to criticism that recent changes to its search results have blurred the lines between ads and regular results, saying it will be experimenting with different designs.

    As a part of a mid-January redesign to desktop search results, the company made paid links look more like unpaid results. The word “Ad” in bold text appears next to the advertisements, which typically are listed first and are therefore more likely to be clicked on and generate ad revenue for Google.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/24/google-will-iterate-the-design-that-made-it-harder-to-tell-ads-from-search-results.html

Other

  • ‘Amazon Empire’ Documentary Shows How Jeff Bezos Took Over Everything

    Politicians, regulators, and commentators are not as clear-eyed about what to do with Amazon. Some want to break it up, others say that antitrust action won’t work, and others still talk of nationalizing the company. Or even worse, incorporating the company into a socialist system (gasp) by taking a close look at how Amazon’s central planning might help us design non-market solutions to problems that Amazon claims to solve today (i.e. matching people to their individual tastes at the highest possible quality for the lowest possible cost).

    Amazon is rapidly metastasizing into an invisible infrastructure that mediates our economy, politics, social relations, and culture. It is important we have a clear understanding of that and reject its rosy PR about simply wanting to provide goods to customers cheaply (and profitably).

    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7kzbxg/amazon-empire-documentary-shows-how-jeff-bezos-took-over-everything

  • India Targets Jeff Bezos Over Amazon and Washington Post

    On the same day, Mr. Modi’s commerce minister, Piyush Goyal, dismissed Mr. Bezos’ announcement of a fresh $1 billion investment to help small businesses in the country. “It is not as if they are doing a favor to India,” Mr. Goyal told reporters. He then referred to the antitrust investigation of Amazon and its chief rival that Indian regulators opened the day before Mr. Bezos arrived.

    Although both men later tempered their remarks, the double-barreled assault on The Post and Amazon is reminiscent of President Trump, who has repeatedly attacked Mr. Bezos, The Post’s coverage of his administration, and Amazon — often all in the same tweet.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/20/technology/india-amazon-bezos-washington-post.html

  • IBM Sales Expected to Dip Despite Red Hat Purchase: What to Watch

    IBM is expected to report adjusted earnings per share of $4.69 for the quarter ended Dec. 31, down from $4.87 for the same period last year, according to analysts surveyed by FactSet. Adjusted net income should be around $4.19 billion, down from $4.42 billion in the year-prior quarter, the analysts expect.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/ibm-sales-expected-to-dip-despite-red-hat-purchase-what-to-watch-11579602600

  • Trend: Layoffs hit Q&A startup Quora

    “[W]e need to reduce our burn rate to a sustainable level from which we can focus on pursuing the mission and growing the business over the long term. We do not want to be dependent on outside capital, so self-reliance and careful management of our resources are crucial to our future,” D’Angelo wrote.

    Over the past several weeks, layoffs have been hitting startups, including several in SoftBank’s portfolio as well as Mozilla and, just today, genetic testing startup 23andMe.

    https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/23/layoffs-hit-qa-startup-quora/

Posted on

Supplier Report: 1/24/2020


Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash

Even though Google is under investigation for monopoly tactics, the company announced another acquisition. The search giant is set to purchase cloud sales company Pointy, which helps small companies sell their products online.

The company also announced a long-term strategy to kill browser cookies, with the aim to better protect end-user privacy (and likely unleash their own tracking-standard for advertisers).

Apple also announced an acquisition this week (AI startup Xnor.ai), but that news was overshadowed by the company’s refusal to unlock phones involved with the Pensacola shooting. Should tech companies intentionally open back doors for the government (even with the best of intentions) which could lead to much larger security issues?

Acquisitions/Investments

  • Google acquires Pointy, a startup to help brick-and-mortar retailers list products online, for $163M

    The search giant is acquiring Pointy, a startup out of Dublin, Ireland, which has built hardware and software technology to help physical retailers — specifically those that might not already have an extensive e-commerce storefront detailing in-store inventory — get their products discoverable online without any extra work.

    The companies are not disclosing the financial terms of the deal, but a source tells us it is €147 million ($163 million).

    A source notes that this was a “good outcome” because Pointy has a “one of a kind” product that didn’t really have any comparables in the market. Pointy had also managed to pick up quite a lot of traction as a small startup, working with around 10% of all physical retailers in the U.S. in certain categories (pets and toys were two of those, I was told).

    https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/14/google-is-buying-pointy-a-startup-that-helps-brick-and-mortar-retailers-list-products-online/

  • Equinix is acquiring bare metal cloud provider Packet

    Sara Baack, chief product officer at Equinix, says bringing the two companies together will provide a diverse set of bare metal options for customers moving forward. “Our combined strengths will further empower companies to be everywhere they need to be, to interconnect everyone and integrate everything that matters to their business,” she said in a statement.

    While the companies did not share the purchase price, they did hint that they would have more details on the transaction after it closes, which is expected in the first quarter this year.

    https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/14/equinix-is-acquiring-bare-metal-cloud-provider-packet/

  • Apple acquires Xnor.ai, edge AI spin-out from Paul Allen’s AI2, for price in $200M range

    The three-year-old startup’s secret sauce has to do with AI on the edge — machine learning and image recognition tools that can be executed on low-power devices rather than relying on the cloud. “We’ve been able to scale AI out of the cloud to every device out there,” co-founder Ali Farhadi, who is the venture’s CXO (chief Xnor officer) as well as a UW professor, told GeekWire in 2018.

    Xnor.ai also developed a self-service platform that made it possible for software developers, even those who aren’t skilled in AI, to drop AI-centric code and data libraries into device-centric apps.

    Those two threads of innovation are woven into the startup’s motto: “AI Everywhere, for Everyone.”

    https://www.geekwire.com/2020/exclusive-apple-acquires-xnor-ai-edge-ai-spin-paul-allens-ai2-price-200m-range/

Cloud

  • Google Cloud gets a premium support plan with 15-minute response times

    Google stresses that the team that will answer a company’s calls will consist of “content-aware experts” that know your application stack and architecture. As with similar premium plans from other vendors, enterprises will have a Technical Account manager who works through these issues with them. Companies with global operations can opt to have (and pay for) technical account managers available during business hours in multiple regions.

    The idea here, however, is also to give GCP users more proactive support, which will soon include a site reliability engineering engagement, for example, that is meant to help customers “design a wrapper of supportability around the Google Cloud customer projects that have the highest sensitivity to downtime.” The Support team will also work with customers to get them ready for special events like Black Friday or other peak events in their industry. Over time, the company plans to add more features and additional support plans.

    https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/15/google-cloud-gets-a-premium-support-plan-with-15-minute-response-times/

Security/Privacy

  • Apple Said It Is Helping In The Pensacola Shooting Investigation, But It Won’t Unlock The Shooter’s iPhones

    “We reject the characterization that Apple has not provided substantive assistance in the Pensacola investigation. Our responses to their many requests since the attack have been timely, thorough and are ongoing,” the company said in a statement. “We responded to each request promptly, often within hours, sharing information with FBI offices in Jacksonville, Pensacola and New York. The queries resulted in many gigabytes of information that we turned over to investigators. In every instance, we responded with all of the information that we had.”

    But Apple said nothing about actually unlocking the gunman’s two iPhones. Instead, it reiterated its stance on privacy.

    “We have always maintained there is no such thing as a backdoor just for the good guys,” the company explained. “Backdoors can also be exploited by those who threaten our national security and the data security of our customers. … We feel strongly encryption is vital to protecting our country and our users’ data.

    https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/scottlucas/william-barr-apple-request-unlock-iphones

  • Google Says Chrome Will End Support for Third-Party Cookies That Track You. Here’s Why That’s Not All Good News

    So, let’s look at the good news and the bad news. If you’re a user, there’s mostly good news, because ending third-party cookies is generally good for privacy. The caveat here is that it’s not yet entirely clear how Google plans to have it both ways. Meaning, it’s not clear how Google thinks it can provide a privacy-protected browsing experience that also provides targeted ads.

    There’s also the fact that some less ethical advertisers will no doubt resort to other types of more nefarious tracking, like browser and device fingerprinting. Those technologies create a profile of you based on information sent by your browser about your device, the operating system, your location, and other unique identifiers. Safari has introduced protection against that, and it will be interesting if Google takes a similar approach with Chrome.

    https://www.inc.com/jason-aten/google-says-chrome-will-end-support-for-third-party-cookies-that-track-you-thats-not-all-good-news.html

Software/SaaS

  • Mozilla lays off 70 as it waits for new products to generate revenue

    In an internal memo, Mozilla chairwoman and interim CEO Mitchell Baker specifically mentions the slow rollout of the organization’s new revenue-generating products as the reason for why it needed to take this action. The overall number may still be higher, though, as Mozilla is still looking into how this decision will affect workers in the U.K. and France. In 2018, Mozilla Corporation (as opposed to the much smaller Mozilla Foundation) said it had about 1,000 employees worldwide.

    https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/15/mozilla-lays-off-70-as-it-waits-for-subscription-products-to-generate-revenue/?guccounter=1

  • Daily Crunch: Goodbye Hipmunk

    Founded by Adam J. Goldstein and Reddit co-founder Steve “spez” Huffman, Hipmunk was one of the first well-made “metasearch” travel sites. It scrounged up flights (and hotels/car rentals/etc.) from across myriad services like Expedia, Priceline, etc., presenting all the times and prices in one big, skimmable interface.

    Now the Hipmunk team says the website and app are both shutting down. Oh, and we’ve confirmed that Goldstein and Huffman tried to buy the company back from SAP Concur, but that doesn’t seem to have panned out.

    https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/15/daily-crunch-goodbye-hipmunk/

Infrastructure/Hardware

  • Report: Intel CPU Supply Issues Will Likely Persist Through 2020

    Intel has previously admitted to being stuck between a rock and a hard place and their CEO, Bob Swan, gave a very candid explanation for the situation they are in right now. It does, however, mean that AMD *will* be eating away more market share from Intel as OEMs and AIBs have to switch to AMD parts to maintain their volume as Intel’s foundries are running at peak capacity and cannot keep up with demand. Every chip order that Intel is not able to meet means market share gained by AMD.

    It also doesn’t help that Intel’s chips ship at a premium (and it makes no sense to kill that premium right now when demand exceeds supply) and OEMs/AIBs have to pass that cost down to consumers who may prefer to go with AMD alternatives anyways. If there is one thing we know for sure it is that 2020 is going to be a make or break year for Intel and things won’t start looking up for the company till late 2021.

    https://wccftech.com/report-intel-cpu-supply-issues-will-likely-persist-through-2020/

Other

  • Silicon Valley Abandons the Culture That Made It the Envy of the World

    Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, said much the same last year. “Chinese companies are growing faster, they have higher valuations, and they have more users than their non-Chinese counterparts,” he said. “It’s very important to understand that there is a global competition around technology innovation, and China is a significant player and likely to remain so.”

    This is a full reversal of the language that tech promoters used to sell Silicon Valley–style innovation and competitiveness for decades. Saxenian has noticed the change in how the Valley describes itself, or at least in how the dominant firms do. “Advocacy of the small, innovative firm and entrepreneurial ecosystem is giving way to more and more justifications for bigness (scale economics, competitive advantage, etc.),” Saxenian wrote to me in an email. “The big is beautiful line is coming especially from the large companies (Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple) that are threatened by antitrust and need to justify their scale.”

    This sort of talk prompts one obvious, knee-jerk response: It’s simply hypocrisy. When Google and Facebook were start-ups, their executives said start-ups were good. Now that Google and Facebook are huge, their executives say huge companies are good. It’s cynical, if not unexpected.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/01/why-silicon-valley-and-big-tech-dont-innovate-anymore/604969/

Posted on

Supplier Report: 1/17/2020


Photo by inbal marilli on Unsplash

Privacy will continue to be a major issue for technology companies in 2020.  We are a few weeks into the new year and Amazon already suffered a breach, but at least they weren’t hacked… employees just gave the data away.

Facebook got their collective teeth kicked in last year, but Mark Zuckerberg’s tone during his “2030 statement” makes me think has hasn’t learned from the experience and he thinks perhaps this will all blow over. Meanwhile there is a sentiment of “techlash” growing with students at college campuses.

Finally… the rumors of Google buying SalesForce continue.

Acquisitions/Investments

  • On CRM: This Is What Google Should Consider Before Buying Salesforce

    It’s no secret that Google’s cloud division – which is trailing far behind its rivals Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS) – is looking to make a big acquisition in order to play catch-up ball. Now a new report from Business Insider claims that the company may be considering a purchase of Salesforce.com to fulfill this ambition.

    Also:

    Does Google understand that, like the fans of a baseball team that come to watch great players, swallowing up Salesforce and prioritizing cloud over CRM would – over time – ultimately sabotage the very reason that attracted them? How long would it take for Google to start watering down Salesforce’s brand and neglecting CRM as it brings other, unrelated applications and its own search and advertising tools to the cloud platform it acquires? If this happens Benioff, an iconic entrepreneur and philanthropist, would likely not stick around very long under a Google regime. Neither would the passionate community that he built which underscores the success of Salesforce’s cloud platform.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2020/01/09/on-crm-this-is-what-google-should-consider-before-buying-salesforce/#29aa04b4ff7f

Artificial Intelligence/Robotics

  • The “Robot Tax” Debate Heats Up

    Bill Gates has called for a robot tax, and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio detailed a plan for one in his short-lived presidential campaign. If the future means far fewer workers and far more machines, tax revenue could drop and the daily rhythms of steady employment could become erratic.

    A robot tax could serve multiple purposes, slowing job-destroying automation while raising revenue to supplement shrinking taxes paid by human workers. It could take a few different forms. Lawmakers could limit or slow down deductions for businesses that replace humans with robots, or they could hit businesses with levies equivalent to the payroll taxes paid by employers and employees.

    For the moment, massive job losses from automation and artificial intelligence are a largely theoretical worry. But tax economists and lawyers are thinking through the economic circumstances in which robot taxes might make sense and the tricky legal decisions and definitions needed to implement them.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-robot-tax-debate-heats-up-11578495608

  • Medical Robotics Company Names Former Google Cloud COO As CEO

    Bryant joins Neural Analytics after six months as Google Cloud’s chief operating officer, where she focused on scaling its Cloud platform against fierce competition from Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. She worked at chip giant Intel for over thirty years, departing the company as a president of the company’s data center group.

    Neural Analytics has developed a robotically assisted ultrasound system for the assessment of brain health, which is designed to measure and display information about brain blood flow, under the guidance of a healthcare professional.

    In an email, Bryant said she had received three offers to serve as the CEO of companies in different industries, but was ultimately intrigued by the promise of Neural Analytics’ technology.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/johanmoreno/2020/01/10/medical-robotics-company-names-former-google-cloud-coo-as-ceo/#6126a20a50cf

    That headline should be less about her time at Google and more about her time at Intel

Security/Privacy

  • Amazon fires employees for leaking customer email addresses and phone numbers

    The email to customers sent Friday afternoon, seen by TechCrunch, said an employee was “terminated” for sharing the data, and that the company is supporting law enforcement in their prosecution.

    Amazon confirmed the incident in an email to TechCrunch. A spokesperson said a number of employees were fired. But little else is known about the employees, when the information was shared and with whom, and how many customers are affected.

    “No other information related to your account was shared. This is not a result of anything you have done, and there is no need for you to take any action,” the email read to customers.

    https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/10/amazon-employees-email-address/

Software/SaaS

  • If you thought Zuckerberg would ever rein in rightwing demagogues, think again

    Three of the five areas of focus are simply to continue working on Facebook’s major business aims (private messaging, e-commerce, and VR/AR); the personal challenge version of deciding that, screw the diet-book industrial complex, you’re beautiful just as you are. A fourth, entitled “New forms of governance” is to continue working on the “supreme court” of Facebook content moderation, another project already long in the works.

    The fifth, which Zuckerberg entitled “generational change”, appears to encapsulate his desire to see more millennials take positions of power in institutions over the next decade. Considering that many millennials will be approaching their mid-40s by 2030, this is the equivalent of resolving to experience the passage of time.

    So no, if you thought that Zuckerberg was going to spend the next decade grappling with the question of what Donald Trump, Narendra Modi and Rodrigo Duterte have in common, I’m sorry to disappoint you. Please join me instead in imagining Zuck in his bathroom, crooning to himself in the mirror: “You’re beautiful, you’re beautiful, you’re beautiful, it’s true.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/10/2020-fixing-facebook-zuckerberg-election

Infrastructure/Hardware

  • For Memory-Chip Makers, the Worst Appears to Be Over

    The latest positive sign came from Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s largest memory-chip maker, which this week issued financial guidance that topped analysts’ estimates. That followed a declaration from rival producer Micron Technology Co. in December that its business was passing through a ”cyclical bottom.”

    A big accelerant is the rollout of 5G mobile networks. The global deployment of the next-generation technology should re-energize smartphone sales and juice corporate investments in artificial intelligence, computing and data storage—all areas requiring significant memory capacity.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/for-memory-chip-makers-the-worst-appears-to-be-over-11578487758

  • HP Wins $439 Million As Judge Triples Jury Price-Fix Award

    HP Inc. was awarded $439 million in damages against Quanta Storage Inc. and its U.S. subsidiary after a federal judge tripled a jury’s 2019 award for damages caused by a widespread scheme to inflate the price of optical disk drives.

    In October, a Houston jury ordered Quanta to pay HP $176 million in damages. U.S. District Judge David Hittner said Friday that Quanta hadn’t shown any reason why the jury’s findings should be set aside. He tripled the damages award, as authorized under antitrust law, to $528 million before deducting the $89 million in settlements paid by the other companies HP accused of participating in the price-fixing scheme.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-03/hp-wins-438-million-after-judge-triples-jury-price-fixing-award

Other

  • With immigration under fire, visa uncertainty and wait times for foreign-born advertising employees

    I was job hunting and talked to a bunch of really great creative shops. One that I really wanted to work at told me the visa is a really big hurdle for them because I’m mid-level and that they weren’t sure if it was worth it to sponsor someone who isn’t super senior. There’s no right time to bring up the visa. We typically don’t bring it up until after the interview and when there’s a follow up. There’s a sense that you’ll wow them so much in the interview that they’ll want to hire you even if you have the visa. Most people wait.

    Also:

    I’ve talked to multiple people and recruiters are telling me that it’s harder to get approval now. Timelines are getting extended, it’s taking longer and there’s more scrutiny. [Overall, the immigration and visa approval process] completely messes with how agencies are today with project-work. No one is anticipating work needs eight months in advance so it’s hard to get those timelines to mesh with each other. Visas just don’t jibe well with flexible work models or project-work.

    https://outline.com/4NxuWE

  • Lime is laying off about 100 people and ceasing operations in 12 markets

    “Financial independence is our goal for 2020, and we are confident that Lime will be the first next-generation mobility company to reach profitability,” Lime CEO Brad Bao said in a statement to TechCrunch. “We are immensely grateful for our team members, riders, Juicers and cities who supported us, and we hope to reintroduce Lime back into these communities when the time is right.”

    That means Lime is shutting down in Atlanta, Phoenix, San Diego, San Antonio, Linz, Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Lima, Puerto Vallarta, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.

    https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/09/lime-is-laying-off-about-100-people-and-ceasing-operations-in-12-markets/

Posted on

Supplier Report: 1/10/2020


Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Hitting goals is critical for a business, especially in the tech world. We are seeing companies trade their culture in order to hit business targets (see Google and Amazon). The media is coming down hard on Google for these shifts, but as we have seen with WeWork, the time of the unicorn darlings is over and the stock market is demanding profits once again.

SoftBank and Masayoshi Son are another root cause for this tonal shift. At the moment, many of SoftBank’s investments are performing poorly (again see WeWork and Uber). Son’s investment strategies enabled many of the wayward valuations over the last few years and a market course-correction was in order.

If a good idea doesn’t make a profit (somehow), it isn’t going to survive. Capitalism is cruel and wonderful beast.

Acquisitions/Investments

  • Here’s a Masayoshi Son Shopping List for 2020

    The numbers are so bad, you have to laugh. Uber: down 37% since IPO. WeWork: valuation cut by 80%. Wag: sold back to founders at a loss. But Son will bounce back. He has to, because he has another Vision Fund to raise and run. Instead of being cowed into humility, it’s more likely he’ll double down and make even more fantastical bets with other people’s money. To help him out, I did a multivariate analysis(1) based on past SoftBank deals to come up with a list of investments he ought to consider.

    Also:

    Saudi AramcoTo be frank, Saudi Arabia’s state oil company isn’t really the kind of thing SoftBank should be putting money into because oil is just not futuristic enough. Data is said to be the new oil anyway. But then, taking Saudi money is something many believe Son shouldn’t be doing at all in light of the murder of writer Jamal Khashoggi. Son has pledged not to abandon the Saudis — after all, they gave $45 billion to the Vision Fund — and so that commitment may as well include throwing support behind Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his nation’s largest asset. Riyadh ended up settling for a $1.7 trillion market cap at IPO, after previously assuring everyone that it was worth at least $2 trillion. While it hit that figure within days of listing, the shortfall at IPO is equivalent to three Vision Funds. After WeWork’s $40 billion drop in value, Masa will feel right at home.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/heres-a-masayoshi-son-shopping-list-for-2020/2019/12/30/af519386-2b69-11ea-bffe-020c88b3f120_story.html

  • IBM Bet Everything on an Acquisition in 2019. Now It Needs to Grow Again.

    The Red Hat deal is just one in a decadeslong series of IBM moves to keep up with shifting technology trends. Keep in mind that IBM over the years built and later unloaded large businesses in desktop computers, laptops, printers, microprocessors, chip manufacturing, and typewriters. (Didn’t you once own an IBM Selectric?) The latest move will help IBM stay relevant in a world in which cloud-based services have come to dominate the information technology landscape.

    While IBM over the last decade has made a lot of noise about Watson, the company’s cloud-based artificial intelligence software platform, the company has been slow to establish a leadership position in the public cloud, falling behind the market leaders: Amazon.com’s (AMZN) Amazon Web Services, Microsoft’s (MSFT) Azure, and Alphabet’s (GOOGL) Google Cloud Platform.

    https://www.barrons.com/articles/ibm-bet-everything-on-red-hat-in-2019-51577479288

Artificial Intelligence

  • Google AI Beats Doctors at Breast Cancer Detection—Sometimes

    The model is the latest step in Google’s push into health care. The Alphabet Inc. GOOG 0.07% company has developed similar systems to detect lung cancer, eye disease and kidney injury.

    Google and Alphabet have come under scrutiny for privacy concerns related to the use of patient data. A deal with Ascension, the second-largest health system in the U.S., allows Google to use AI to mine personal, identifiable health information from millions of patients to improve processes and care.

    The health data used in the breast-cancer project doesn’t include identifiable information, Google Health officials said, and the data was stripped of personal indicators before given to Google.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-ai-beats-doctors-at-breast-cancer-detectionsometimes-11577901600

  • Illinois says you should know if AI is grading your online job interviews

    It’s not just that we don’t know how these systems work. Artificial intelligence can also introduce bias and inaccuracy to the job application process, and because these algorithms largely operate in a black box, it’s not really possible to hold a company that uses a problematic or unfair tool accountable.

    A new Illinois law — one of the first of its kind in the US — is supposed to provide job candidates a bit more insight into how these unregulated tools actually operate. But it’s unlikely the legislation will change much for applicants. That’s because it only applies to a limited type of AI, and it doesn’t ask much of the companies deploying it.

    Also:

    “It’s hard to feel that that consent is going to be super meaningful if the alternative is that you get no shot at the job at all,” said Rieke. He added that there’s no guarantee that the consent and explanation the law requires will be useful; for instance, the explanation could be so broad and high-level that it’s not helpful.

    https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/1/1/21043000/artificial-intelligence-job-applications-illinios-video-interivew-act

Cloud

  • Amazon Has Long Ruled the Cloud. Now It Must Fend Off Rivals.

    Amazon’s success in the cloud, more recently, has suffered setbacks beyond the lost Pentagon deal. Last year, one of its biggest banking customers, Capital One Financial Corp. , had more than 100 million customer records stolen that were stored on Amazon’s cloud. And more big corporations are turning to other cloud vendors. Some are worried the online retail giant could become a competitor, according to people familiar with the matter. Many large multinationals have longstanding relationships with Microsoft or Oracle, but not with Amazon.

    “What we’re seeing now is there’s another wave of late-adopter customers coming to market. These are customers that have never used cloud before, so they’re investigating,” said Raj Bala, research director at Gartner. “A fair number of these customers will certainly end up at [Microsoft’s] Azure, because they meet that profile: they run a lot of Windows, they tend to want to play it safe, and the decision makers in that camp tend to favor Azure to a large extent.”

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-has-long-ruled-the-cloud-now-it-must-fend-off-rivals-11578114008

Security/Privacy

  • What California’s New Privacy Law Means for You

    Not everybody will have to comply with the law. The CCPA only applies to companies that earn more than $25 million in gross annual revenue, collect personal data on more than 50,000 users, or make more than 50 percent of their revenue selling user data.

    It’s also worth highlighting that while the bill technically took effect on January 1, California’s Attorney General has stated enforcement isn’t likely to begin until sometime this summer, giving lawmakers some additional time to work out some early kinks, clarify murky language, or water down existing requirements upon lobbyist request. Already we’re seeing that some companies aren’t complying with the law.

    Groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation say they spent the better part of 2019 trying to keep lobbyists from numerous industries from weakening the bill, since empowered, informed consumers will inevitably opt out of data sales, costing companies billions.

    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/z3bvyx/what-californias-ccpa-new-privacy-law-means-for-you

Other

  • Former Google human rights chief says he was ‘sidelined’ over censored Chinese search engine

    As Google pushed for deals in authoritarian Saudi Arabia and launched the Google Center for Artificial Intelligence in Beijing, LaJeunesse says, he pushed for a company-wide human rights program that would bring new oversight to product launches. But Google rebuffed the idea, and eventually brought in a colleague to oversee policy issues related to Dragonfly.

    “Just when Google needed to double down on a commitment to human rights,” LaJeunesse writes in the blog post, “it decided to instead chase bigger profits and an even higher stock price.”

    The issues extended to the broader culture within the company as well, according to LaJeunesse. He says, at one point, during an all-hands meeting, his boss at the company suggested Asian employees “don’t like to ask questions.”

    https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/2/21046522/google-china-dragonfly-ross-lajeunesse-human-rights-chief-censorship

    Google has little choice to be evil or not in today’s fractured internet

    Google used to have a lot of agency, which is unfortunately declining very, very rapidly.

    I’ve talked about the fracturing of the internet into different spheres of influence for quite literally years. Countries like China in particular, but also Russia, Iran and others, are seizing more and more exacting control of the internet’s plumbing and applications, subsuming the original internet’s spirit of openness and freedom and placing this communications medium under their iron fists.

    As this fracturing has occurred, companies like Google, or Shutterstock, or even the NBA, have increasingly faced what I’ve called an “authoritarian straddle” — they can either work with these countries and follow the local rules, or they can just get out, with serious ramifications for their home markets.

    https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/02/google-has-little-choice-to-be-evil-or-not-in-todays-fractured-internet/

  • Amazon threatens to fire critics who are outspoken on its environmental policies

    Amazon’s external communications policy “is not new and we believe is similar to other large companies,” company spokeswoman Jaci Anderson said in a statement. In response to whether Amazon was trying to stifle workers, Anderson said employees are “encouraged to work within their teams,” including by “suggesting improvements to how we operate through those internal channels.”

    Tech workers have recently become more outspoken about concerns over their employers’ policies. During a Sept. 20 protest, thousands of Amazon employees walked out and criticized the company’s climate policies and practices. In November 2018, thousands of Google employees walked off the job to protest of the company’s handling of sexual harassment claims. Workers at Google, Amazon and Microsoft have spoken out in criticism of facial-recognition technology from their companies, fearing misuse by law enforcement and other government agencies.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/01/02/amazon-threatens-fire-outspoken-employee-critics-its-environmental-policies/
    Additional Comments:
    This isn’t a union situation, but it feels similar to when Regan broke the unions in the 80’s. The air traffic controllers thought they couldn’t be replaced… and then Regan replaced them. Those people were barred from air traffic control jobs for years until Clinton granted amnesty.
    https://www.npr.org/2019/12/13/788002965/episode-958-when-reagan-broke-the-unions

Posted on

Supplier Report: 1/3/2020


Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Big Tech is trying to make good on promises like leaving acquisitions alone and not using your personal data for evil things. But when the pressure to earn rises to unbearable levels, will those words still hold true?

California is trying to hold these companies responsible and give consumers more control over the data collected about them, but will these laws help or confuse an already complicated situation?

Finally, since we are on the topic of privacy, you might want to think twice before sending your cheek swab to one of those DNA companies… there isn’t much governance on what they are (and what the authorities) are doing with that data.

Acquisitions/Investments

  • LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner: ‘Satya Has Made Good’ On Microsoft’s Acquisition Agreement

    One of the biggest reasons why Microsoft is taking its time on pushing integrations is to avoid making mistakes. LinkedIn is Microsoft’s largest acquisition to date so it has to move with caution.

    Microsoft wants to avoid making integration mistakes that it made in the past. In 2012, Microsoft had written off the $6.2 billion acquisition of digital ad company aQuantive. And Microsoft also saw a quarterly loss in 2015 due to $8.3 billion in charges related to the restructuring of its phone hardware operations following the $9.5 billion acquisition of the Nokia Devices and Services business.

    Microsoft CFO Amy Hood pointed out that one of the goals of the LinkedIn acquisition was to accelerate the growth of the professional social network along with Office 365 and Dynamics 365.

    https://pulse2.com/linkedin-satya-has-made-good-on-acquisition/

  • Remembering the startups we lost in 2019

    A cursory look at this year’s batch of companies doesn’t find any story quite as spectacular as last year’s big Theranos flameout, which gave us a best-selling book, documentary, podcast series and upcoming Adam McKay/Jennifer Lawrence film. Some, like MoviePass, however, may have come close.

    And for every Theranos, there are dozens of stories of hardworking founders with promising products that simply couldn’t make it to the finish line. There’s also room for debate about what is and isn’t a startup. For our purposes, we’re focusing here on independent startups, not digital initiatives from larger companies — though in at least one case, the startup was acquired by a larger company before shutting down.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/26/startups-lost-in-2019/

Security/Privacy

  • GDPR was just a warmup. CCPA will arrive with a bang.

    “We’ve already talked to some companies who either have decided or are considering to pull their marketing programs from California. So there may be some fallout. It might just be a temporary thing for them to see where the cards fall,” said Rachel Glasser, global chief privacy officer at Wunderman Thompson.

    Even if only temporarily, advertiser pullback would put publishers’ and ad tech companies’ businesses in a bind. But those companies are also facing more permanent predicaments.

    Any company that sells California residents’ personal information under the law’s broad definition of sale is required to put a “clear and conspicuous” link on its homepage titled “Do Not Sell My Personal Information” for people to request the company to stop selling their information.

    https://digiday.com/marketing/gdpr-just-warmup-ccpa-will-arrive-bang/
    What Does California’s New Data Privacy Law Mean? Nobody Agrees

    “Companies have different interpretations, and depending on which lawyer they are using, they’re going to get different advice,” said Kabir Barday, the chief executive of OneTrust, a privacy management software service that has worked with more than 4,000 companies to prepare for the law. “I’ll call it a religious war.”

    The new law has national implications because many companies, like Microsoft, say they will apply their changes to all users in the United States rather than give Californians special treatment. Federal privacy bills that could override the state’s law are stalled in Congress.

    The California privacy law applies to businesses that operate in the state, collect personal data for commercial purposes and meet other criteria like generating annual revenue above $25 million. It gives Californians the right to see, delete and stop the sale of the personal details that all kinds of companies — app developers, retailers, restaurant chains — have on them.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/29/technology/california-privacy-law.html

  • What You’re Unwrapping When You Get a DNA Test for Christmas

    But is using one of these kits also opening the door to letting the police use your DNA to arrest your cousin? The answer in this rapidly evolving realm depends largely on which sites you join and the boxes you check off when you do. And even if you never join any of these sites, their policies could affect you so long as one of your 800 closest relatives has.
    **
    To identify a suspect’s blood, for example, investigators do not need to find the person who cut his hand smashing through a window. They just need to match to a couple of his second or third cousins in a DNA database. From there, a genetic genealogist can puzzle out how these cousins are related to one another and the suspect by building out a series of family trees. Often this leads to an arrest.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/22/science/dna-testing-kit-present.html

Infrastructure/Hardware

  • IBM’s Seawater Battery Making Waves

    IBM is essentially announcing a potential alternative to lithium-ion batteries – and not just an alternative to some of the main ingredients. What’s more, IBM states the batteries perform even better than current lithium-ion batteries. Citing greater efficiency, faster charging, as well as higher power and energy density. These batteries are not just environmentally sound, but are also more capable in general. Further adding to their appeal, IBM states they are cheaper to produce thanks to their lack of heavy metals.

    The issue is that they are currently far from being in a finished state. IBM’s announcement does not even suggest the company intends to build the batteries itself. Instead, the collaboration with the other vested companies is intended to flesh out the technology and create an environment where it becomes easier for other companies to produce the seawater-sourced batteries in the future.

    https://screenrant.com/ibm-seawater-battery-tech/

  • Huawei reportedly got by with a lot of help from the Chinese government

    Huawei reportedly had “access to as much as $75 billion in state support,” according to a piece published by The Wall Street Journal on Christmas Day.

    That massive figure is culled from poring over various forms, including grants and tax breaks. Huawei, for its part, isn’t denying any government support, but said in response that what it received was “small and non-material,” in line with the usual variety of grants awarded to tech startups and companies.

    Per WSJ’s accounting of public records, Huawei got around $46 billion in loans and other support, coupled with $25 billion in tax cuts used to accelerate tech advances.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/26/huawei-reportedly-got-by-with-a-lot-of-help-from-the-chinese-government/

Other

  • Accenture: Remaining Bullish And Raising Target Price Post Earnings

    Per our industry-wide analysis and Accenture’s favorable fundamentals, and given the company’s strong top-line growth, we believe that ACN shares merit ~29x P/E multiple on 2019 earnings. When we apply it to our 2019 EPS estimate of $8.65 (up from $8.49), we get the target price of $251 (up from $245). We note that this P/E multiple is contingent on the S&P multiple of ~18x, and may expand/contract together with the multiple.

    Risks:

    While Accenture strives to make the pricing structure attractive to its core clients and, henceforth, attract greater business, we see a number of Indian players, such as Infosys, Tata Consultancy, and Wipro, potentially lowering prices in the foreseeable future. In addition, there are smaller players that are threatening Accenture in Europe, such as Epam and Luxoft.

    The company heavily relies on H1-B and L-1 visas; over the last several years Congress attempts to heavily regulate the number of visa works each company can hire. Should the H1-B and L-1 visas become even more limited, there could be a 40-60 bps negative impact to Accenture’s margin.

    https://seekingalpha.com/article/4314133-accenture-remaining-bullish-and-raising-target-price-post-earnings

  • Uber Co-Founder Travis Kalanick Departs Board, Sells All His Shares

    The exit punctuates a decade in which Silicon Valley investors pumped startups with extraordinary sums of money and granted their founders vast power and a mandate to grow at breakneck speeds.

    Uber and Mr. Kalanick were the archetype of this model, as Mr. Kalanick raised over $14 billion in equity and debt from outside investors who bought into his expansive vision and energetic approach. At its peak, Uber was the most valuable startup in the U.S., with a valuation of about $68 billion.

    The move by Mr. Kalanick to sell his shares was set in place multiple months ago, said people familiar with the matter, and called for him to sell shares daily until his holdings wound down to zero.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-co-founder-travis-kalanick-to-depart-companys-board-11577196747