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Supplier Report: 6/12/2020


Photo by Allef Vinicius on Unsplash

This has been a sad couple of weeks. Actually, this has been a sad year

Between COVID-19 and the recent protests on police brutality – companies, leaders, and governments have to rethink (everything). It would be weird not to mention what has been happening on this post. The news is rightfully focused on other topics.

And yet… even with all of this… business continues. If one thing is a constant, it is Elon Musk talking trash. The Telsa CEO took umbrage with Amazon over the availability of a book and called for the company to be split apart. I suppose we can at least appreciate the distractions he provides the public.

Donate: Black Lives Matter
Donate: Color of Change

Acquisitions/Investments

  • VMware acquires network security firm Lastline, said to lay off 40% of staff

    Since its launch in 2012, Lastline raised about $52.2 million, according to Crunchbase. Investors include Thomvest Ventures, which led the company’s $28.5 million Series C round in 2017; Redpoint and e.ventures, which led the company’s 2013 funding round; and Barracuda Networks, NTT Finance and Dell Technologies Capital.

    A source tells us that VMware will let go some 40% of Lastline’s employees — about 50 staffers — as part of the acquisition. We asked a Lastline spokesperson for comment prior to publication but did not hear back. A spokesperson for VMware also did not respond to a request for comment

    https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/04/vmware-lastline-staff-cuts/

  • Accenture Completes Acquisition of Gekko

    Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has completed its acquisition of Gekko, a leading French Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud services company. Terms of the transaction, which was announced on April 20 [link to original news release], were not disclosed.

    Gekko has more than 100 trained cloud professionals, 100 AWS certifications and a deep relationship with AWS.

    The acquisition strengthens Accenture’s leadership position in cloud and artificial intelligence; extends its ongoing relationships with key technology providers, including ecosystem partners such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft; and complements the cloud migration expertise and strategic objectives of the Accenture AWS Business Group (AABG) in France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

    https://www.oleantimesherald.com/business/accenture-completes-acquisition-of-gekko/article_d1f22e62-6e3e-5d57-8955-7be0220ada24.html

Cloud

  • Who Will Acquire Zoom: Amazon, Oracle, or IBM?

    Larry Ellison and crew have been quiet on the M&A front for quite some time and that’s not normal for Oracle. With Oracle’s massive suite of SaaS apps, it could create some unique tie-ins with Zoom’s rapidly growing set of capabilities, and give Zoom immediate distribution and presence in every corner of the world.

    Plus, Ellison’s able to envision the full potential of the Zoom phenomenon better than just about anyone, and he always likes to be on offense. And at a time when Ellison is looking to sharply differentiate his company from AWS, the addition of Zoom would certainly help the cause.

    https://cloudwars.co/amazon/who-will-acquire-zoom-amazon-oracle-ibm-cloud-wars/

Software/SaaS

  • DocuSign posts strong Q1, enters remote work, digital transformation winner’s circle

    DocuSign’s e-signature and Agreement Cloud are among the first quarter winners as companies aim to go more digital and perform more work remotely.

    The company reported a first quarter net loss of 26 cents a share on revenue of $297 million, up 39% from a year ago. Non-GAAP earnings for the quarter were 12 cents a share.

    Wall Street was expecting DocuSign to report first quarter non-GAAP earnings of 10 cents a share on revenue of $281.1 million. CEO Dan Springer said the COVID-19 pandemic spurred enterprises to accelerate digital transformation efforts and driving demand.

    https://www.zdnet.com/article/docusign-posts-strong-q1-enters-remote-work-digital-transformation-winners-circle/

  • Slack is teaming up with Amazon

    Slack added a record 12,000 new paying customers in the three months ending April 30, and more than 90,000 new organizations on paid or free subscription plans, it said in an earnings report Thursday. It also reported $201.7 million in revenue for the quarter, a 50% increase from the same period a year earlier.

    But neither those numbers, nor the Amazon deal, were enough to cheer investors — the company’s stock plunged around 16% in after-hours trading following the results.

    https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/04/tech/slack-amazon-deal-earnings/index.html

Other

  • Elon Musk Calls for Amazon Breakup in Latest Spat With Jeff Bezos

    The criticism from Mr. Musk, chief executive of Tesla Inc., came in response to a tweet by Alex Berenson. The author said that Kindle Direct Publishing, Amazon’s outlet for self-published e-books, had rejected his submission for a book called “Unreported Truths about Covid-19 and Lockdowns.” It questions whether the virus is as deadly as public health experts say.

    “This is insane @JeffBezos,” Mr. Musk initially tweeted, criticizing Amazon’s decision. He has repeatedly questioned the severity of the pandemic and criticized parts of the government response as overzealous. “Time to break up Amazon. Monopolies are wrong!” Mr. Musk added in an intensifying battle between two business titans who both seek to dominate key markets on Earth and in outer space.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-calls-for-amazon-breakup-in-latest-spat-with-jeff-bezos-11591305297?mod=rss_Technology

  • Google Search a Target of U.S. Antitrust Probes, Rival Says

    U.S. federal and state authorities are asking detailed questions about how to limit Google’s power in the online search market as part of their antitrust investigations into the tech giant, according to rival DuckDuckGo Inc.

    Gabriel Weinberg, chief executive officer of the privacy-focused search engine, said the company has spoken with state regulators, and talked with the U.S. Justice Department as recently as a few weeks ago.

    Justice Department officials and state attorneys general asked the company about requiring Google to give consumers alternatives to its search engine on Android devices and in Google’s Chrome web browser, Weinberg said in an interview.

    “We’ve been talking to all of them about search and all of them have asked us detailed search questions,” he added.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-04/google-search-is-a-target-of-u-s-antitrust-probes-rival-says

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News You Can Use: 6/10/2020


Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

  • Poorly Designed Curfews Are Wreaking Havoc on Cities

    The problem stems in part from the litany of exceptions and caveats embedded within the curfew policy. Essential workers are allowed out past curfew as long as they are going from work to home. But they are allowed to stop at a deli for a meal. But then they have to go right home. Unless they need medical supplies, then they can get those too. Food delivery workers can also be out, as can media, but only if they’re working. If you’re stopped, there are “no specific requirements for ID.” It is, in short, up to whether the police officers believe you or not.

    Plus, the guidance that “transportation infrastructure such as bus, rail, and yellow and green taxis will be operating normally” proved not to be the case. At Columbus Circle, Gothamist reporter Jake Offenhartz tweeted a photo of police in front of the subway entrance 13 minutes prior to curfew. “Uber and Lyft have been ordered shut at 8. Citi Bike and Revel are already deactivated in the neighborhood,” Offenhartz added, referring to the city’s bike and moped share systems. “When curfew hits in 10 minutes, how the hell are people supposed to get home???”

    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qj4bv7/poorly-designed-curfews-are-wreaking-havoc-on-cities
    DoorDash says it is ‘prepared to provide support’ for Caviar workers arrested in NYC during curfew

    On-demand delivery workers are now caught between the protests and law enforcement, as on-demand apps like Caviar, DoorDash, and Uber Eats informed them that they could continue taking orders as essential workers in certain cities despite the curfew. In some locations, like San Francisco and Washington, DC, Uber and other apps ceased operations during curfew hours. But in New York City, the apps assured their contractors, many of whom rely on the apps for income during the pandemic and yet receive no other form of financial assistance, they could continue working.

    “Our teams on the ground are working closely with cities on how to best support them based on their needs and the local situation,” an Uber spokesperson told BuzzFeed News earlier this week regarding its inconsistent approach to city curfews. “Some cities have requested that we suspend operations during curfew hours while others want to ensure Uber is available for essential services.”

    https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/5/21281272/doordash-caviar-nyc-workers-arrested-response-curfew-protests-police-brutality

  • What should schools teach? Now is the moment to ask
  • Google outlines plan to get some employees back to the office

    Google will begin opening some of its office buildings in various cities starting on July 6, allowing a small amount of its employees who need a physical workspace “the opportunity to return on a limited, rotating basis.” The idea is to rotate employees in for a day every few weeks to keep facilities at only around 10% occupancy.

    If all goes well in its initial efforts, Google will scale that 10% up to 30% around September “which would mean most people who want to come in could do so on a limited basis, while still prioritizing those who need to come in,” according to Pichai.

    https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/26/google-campuses-reopening-covid-19/
    Google’s work from home strategy includes a $1,000 allowance

    As a result the company is providing a $1,000 allowance to staff to help them buy computers, office furniture and other equipment needed for remote work. While that might not cover everything, it should ease the burden for workers who don’t have everything they need.

    https://www.engadget.com/google-work-from-home-allowance-221701178.html

  • Why Does Zoom Exhaust You? Science Has an Answer

    Zoom and other video-conference services present many communication pitfalls—an inability to read body language, faces that move into different spots on the screen, a chat feature to accommodate side comments and transmission delays that hinder turn-taking. “You are always making a judgment about how much to speak and when it’s appropriate,” says Steve Harrison, associate professor at Virginia Tech and director of its Human-Centered Design Program.

    With so little non-verbal and real-time feedback, it’s difficult to tell if people on the other end of the video line are with you. “Ask a question and there’s silence. You feel like you’re talking to empty air,” says Keeley Sorokti, director of knowledge sharing at the Chicago-based nonprofit Ounce of Prevention Fund.

    Another source of stress, researchers have found, is that a mirror or video camera trained on study subjects causes them to see themselves the way they think others do. “When you look in a mirror, what you tend to see is your objective self,” says Amy Gonzales, assistant professor at UC Santa Barbara who studies media and identity. “I guess my nose is kind of big. Maybe I do need some wrinkle cream.” Zoom says it offers a control to block the mirror image.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-does-zoom-exhaust-you-science-has-an-answer-11590600269

Posted on

Supplier Report: 5/29/2020


Photo by Timon Studler on Unsplash

The impact of COVID-19 continues to unfurl as more technology companies announce significant staff and spending reductions.

IBM, Uber, and HPE have recently announced major head count reductions joining dozens of other companies over the last two months.

As organizations try to conserve cash, there are rumors and articles predicting a spike in acquisitions in the technology and retail industries.

Acquisitions/Investments

  • Large Tech Companies Prepare for Acquisition Spree

    “For the largest players, we certainly see this immediate period as a potential opportunity to make plays to aggregate capabilities by acquiring smaller businesses that may need liquidity,” said J. Neely, managing director and global M&A lead at consulting firm Accenture PLC.

    Large companies across the economy are seizing similar opportunities to grow, sparking worries about market consolidation in several industries.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/large-tech-companies-prepare-for-acquisition-spree-11590053401

  • Intel is acquiring the company behind Killer gaming networking cards

    Intel has acquired Rivet Networks, the maker of Killer-branded NICs (network interface cards responsible for managing your connection) found in some laptops from popular brands like Dell, Alienware, HP, and other manufacturers. Killer’s own networking products were noteworthy for providing gaming-centric features like minimizing latency to keep you from missing a beat in-game, and prioritizing network traffic for games and other applications that need it the most.

    Rivet Networks has been a competitor to Intel in the NIC space for over a decade. With this acquisition, Intel can capitalize on the gaming market.

    https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/20/21265297/intel-acquires-rivet-networks-killer-gaming-networking-cards-wifi

  • Verizon wraps up BlueJeans acquisition lickety split

    While it’s crystal clear that video conferencing is a hot item during the pandemic, all sides maintained that this deal was about much more than the short-term requirements of COVID-19. In fact, Verizon saw an enterprise-grade video conferencing platform that would fit nicely into its 5G strategy around things like tele-medicine and online learning.

    They believe these needs will far outlast the current situation, and BlueJeans puts them in good shape to carry out a longer-term video strategy, especially on the burgeoning 5G platform. As BlueJean’s CEO Quentin Gallivan and co-founders, Krish Ramakrishnan and Alagu Periyannan reiterated in a blog post today announcing the deal has been finalized, they saw a lot of potential for growth inside the Verizon Business family that would have been difficult to achieve as a stand-alone company.

    https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/18/verizon-wraps-up-bluejeans-acquisition-lickety-split/

  • Walmart says it will discontinue Jet, which it acquired for $3B in 2016

    Amid the coronavirus crisis and its impact on the retail industry, today the retail giant quietly announced in its quarterly report that it would be discontinuing Jet.com, the online-only marketplace that it acquired when it was just over one year old for $3 billion (plus $300 million in earn-outs over time), as it struggles to bring its e-commerce operations into that black after reportedly seeing a loss of $2 billion in the division in 2019 and shifting how to deliver its e-commerce strategy: by betting on giant stores, rather than online warehouses, as the hubs of its online delivery model.

    Jet.com’s fate was disclosed as part of a Walmart’s Q1 earnings report, in which the company said it saw growth of less than 10% in its core US market, and said that it would be withdrawing guidance for fiscal 2021.

    https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/19/walmart-says-it-will-discontinue-jet-com-which-it-acquired-for-3b-in-2016/

Cloud

  • Google Cloud earns defense contract win for Anthos multi-cloud management tool

    While the company would not get specific about the number, the new contract involves using Anthos, the tool the company announced last year to secure DIU’s multi-cloud environment. In spite of the JEDI contract involving a single vendor, the DoD has always used solutions from all three major cloud vendors — Amazon, Microsoft and Google — and this solution will provide a way to monitor security across all three environments, according to the company.

    “Multi-cloud is the future. The majority of commercial businesses run multi-cloud environments securely and seamlessly, and this is now coming to the federal government as well,” Mike Daniels, VP of Global Public Sector at Google Cloud told TechCrunch.

    The idea is to manage security across three environments with help from cloud security vendor Netskope, which is also part of the deal. “The multi-cloud solution will be built on Anthos, allowing DIU to run web services and applications across Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft Azure — while being centrally managed from the Google Cloud Console,” the company wrote in a statement.

    https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/20/google-cloud-earns-defense-contract-win-for-anthos-multi-cloud-management-tool/

Software/SaaS

  • Christian Klein, CEO SAP – “We have to own the application layer”

    There were disagreements, as you’d expect, but there were some of a fundamental nature where we could not delay the decisions. I’m fully convinced that the hyperscalers will also go up the stack. In the partnerships, we are closing, we have to own the business platform, we have to own the application layer. I want to be more prescriptive on that because when you are losing more and more of the control of the customer transformation when you’re not sitting on the table anymore, when they’re making the decision how to transform the business model, then it gets difficult. I just want to make sure that now in these partnerships, we try our best to make sure that we are in the lead when it comes to business model transformation, when it comes to talks about how to move the system landscape, the application layer in the cloud. And it’s also important that we position our platform there, as we cannot afford to lose the platform game either, as this is the platform which keeps our applications together, makes the integration work. And it’s of course also very important for the extension of our solution. So, this is something where I would like to to draw a much clearer line going forward, because in the past, I feel we were not clear enough in some of these partnerships.

    https://diginomica.com/christian-klein-ceo-sap-we-have-own-application-layer

  • Here’s why Elon Musk keeps raising the price of Tesla’s ‘Full Self-Driving’ option

    There’s another reason Musk thinks the ultimate value of Autopilot is so high. He has promised that once Tesla’s cars are able to drive themselves, the company will leverage that capability into a “robotaxi fleet.” The goal is to make it so that each Tesla customer’s car can double as an autonomous vehicle that other people can hail while the owner isn’t using it.

    Not only would operating a robotaxi service generate more revenue for Tesla, but Musk has said this would allow owners to make as much as $30,000 a year as well. In fact, Musk believes the value of this idea is so high that he’s talked about raising the sticker price of Tesla’s cars, not just the cost of the Full Self-Driving package.

    “[C]onsumers will still be able to buy a Tesla, but the clearing price will rise significantly, as a fully autonomous car that can function as a robotaxi is several times more valuable than a non-autonomous car,” he said last year.

    https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/20/21264345/elon-musk-tesla-full-self-driving-autopilot-price-increase
    TL;DR – Because he can.

Other

  • ‘Way Too Late’: Inside Amazon’s Biggest Outbreak

    In the less than two months since then, the warehouse in the foothills of the Pocono Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania has become Amazon’s biggest Covid-19 hot spot. More employees at AVP1 have been infected by the coronavirus than at any of Amazon’s roughly 500 other facilities in the United States.

    Local lawmakers believe that more than 100 workers have contracted the disease, but the exact number is unknown. At first, Amazon told workers about each new case. But when the total reached about 60, the announcements stopped giving specific numbers.

    The disclosures also stopped at other Amazon warehouses. The best estimate is that more than 900 of the company’s 400,000 blue-collar workers have had the disease. But that number, crowdsourced by Jana Jumpp, an Amazon worker, almost certainly understates the spread of the illness among Amazon’s employees.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/19/technology/amazon-coronavirus-workers.html

  • IBM hands down first layoffs under new CEO Arvind Krishna

    It wasn’t clear how many jobs were being cut, though a source told the Journal that it’s several thousand, out of a massive staff of about 350,000 people.

    Bloomberg said the cuts are in several units, including its Global Technology Services division, which does information technology outsourcing, as well as its Watson artificial intelligence unit, a longtime key focus of IBM’s recovery efforts. Cuts are being made in five states: California, Missouri, New York, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

    “IBM’s work in a highly competitive marketplace requires flexibility to constantly remix to high-value skills, and our workforce decisions are made in the long-term interests of our business,” the company said in a statement. It added in an apparent reference to the coronavirus pandemic that it will offer subsidized coverage to all affected U.S. employees through June 2021.

    https://siliconangle.com/2020/05/21/ibm-hands-first-layoffs-new-ceo-arvind-krishna/

  • Uber Cuts 3,000 More Jobs, Shuts 45 Offices in Coronavirus Crunch

    Mr. Khosrowshahi announced the plans in an email to staff Monday, less than two weeks after the company said it would eliminate about 3,700 jobs and planned to save more than $1 billion in fixed costs. Monday’s decision to close 45 offices and lay off some 3,000 more people means Uber is shedding roughly a quarter of its workforce in under a month’s time. Drivers aren’t classified as employees, so they aren’t included.

    Stay-at-home orders have ravaged Uber’s core ride-hailing business, which accounted for three-quarters of the company’s revenue before the pandemic struck. Uber’s rides business in April was down 80% from a year earlier.

    “We’re seeing some signs of a recovery, but it comes off of a deep hole, with limited visibility as to its speed and shape,” Mr. Khosrowshahi said in his note to employees. The company’s food-delivery arm, Uber Eats, has been a bright spot during the crisis, but “the business today doesn’t come close to covering our expenses,” he wrote.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-cuts-3-000-more-jobs-shuts-45-offices-in-coronavirus-crunch-11589814608

  • HPE Cuts Salaries Companywide as COVID-19 Wrecks Q2

    Neri said that beginning July 1, HPE will implement salary cuts for all employees through Oct. 31, 2020, with the executive team taking the biggest hit. Neri and EVPs will see their base salaries cut 25%. Senior VPs’ base salaries will be cut by 20%, and board members will also take a 25% cut to their annual cash retainer.

    Employees that live in countries that prohibit pay reductions will instead take unpaid leave. “In addition, we have implemented cost containment measures across the company, and restricted external hiring through the end of our fiscal year, and put salary increases on hold,” Neri said.

    Overall, HPE expects the cuts to save at least $1 billion by the end of fiscal 2022.

    Neri pointed to a couple of bright points during the quarter. HPE exited Q2 with more than $1.5 billion in backlogged compute, storage, HPC, and Aruba networking orders, which Neri said represents two-times the average historical quarterly backlog despite the challenging economic backdrop.

    https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/hpe-cuts-salaries-companywide-as-covid-19-wrecks-q2/2020/05/

Posted on

News You Can Use: 5/27/2020


Photo by Drew Beamer on Unsplash

  • The office is dead, according to most startup founders

    The implications of these findings offer a glimpse into a post-COVID-19 work world. Sixty-six percent of CEOs are considering letting go of (or downsizing) their offices, according to the survey, because an average of 70% of employees who previously reported for duty at a company’s workspace would be allowed to work remotely once stay-at-home orders are lifted.

    The majority predicted that mandatory shutdowns will be over by the end of Q3, and 67% said that they would make a sanitized/sterilized workspace a priority to keep their people safe. The majority (61%) said they would allow employees to continue working from home until they felt safe enough to travel and could manage childcare. These CEOs said their companies would not incur additional expenses to help their workers with childcare or commuting.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90507601/the-office-is-dead-according-to-most-startup-founders
    Mark Zuckerberg’s new work-from-home zeal is very, very convenient

    Getting out in front on this work-from-home revolution might just be the message for today, when many of us have come to believe that COVID-19 will change work forever and radically deemphasize the importance of brick-and-mortar offices. (Though not everybody buys it.) It’s a feel-good message that comes just after Facebook picked off Giphy in the midst of a pandemic and during the height of anti-trust angst in Washington. Earlier this month, The Washington Post revealed that Facebook is behind the launch of a new lobbying group called American Edge, which will try to calm anti-tech and anti-trust fever in the capital.

    If Zuckerberg follows through on his comments, there are some positives here. Zuckerberg stated that Facebook will immediately start focusing on hiring people who live away from the crowded and overpriced housing markets of the coasts. If Facebook did transition to 50% remote work, it could expand the tech talent pool geographically and make it easier for tech companies small and large to find good people. “It doesn’t seem that good to constrain hiring to people who live around offices,” Zuckerberg eloquently said. It might also extend the economic spillover zones that benefit indirectly from tech industry money to new places farther from the coasts.

    Even here, there’s a dark side. Facebook says it will adjust salaries to fit the location of the employee, so an engineer working in Silicon Valley will make more money than an engineer doing the same work in Nevada. But, to be fair, such an adjustment might be appropriate so long as the quality of life the two salaries can buy in different markets is equal.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90508223/mark-zuckerbergs-new-work-from-home-zeal-is-very-very-convenient

  • Understanding the Economic Shock of the Covid-19 Crisis
  • Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella warns about the consequences of embracing remote work permanently

    “What I miss is when you walk into a physical meeting, you are talking to the person that is next to you, you’re able to connect with them for the two minutes before and after,” he said.

    Nadella warned about the consequences of embracing telecommuting permanently:

    “What does burnout look like? What does mental health look like? What does that connectivity and the community building look like? One of the things I feel is, hey, maybe we are burning some of the social capital we built up in this phase where we are all working remote. What’s the measure for that?”

    Nadella’s concern doesn’t appear to be shared widely throughout the technology industry. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey notified staff this week that they should feel free to work from home indefinitely if they choose. Salesforce and Zillow will give employees the option to telecommute for the rest of the year.

    https://www.geekwire.com/2020/pandemic-isnt-hurting-microsofts-bottom-line-changes-still-worry-satya-nadella/

  • The hunt for a work-from-home webcam: A story of broken supply chains, ‘sold-out’ messages and refreshing online carts

    Webcams are sold out or on weeks-long back order nearly everywhere across the Internet, and people are reporting having trouble finding them in the limited number of retail stores that are open as well. E-commerce tracking company CommerceIQ found 78 percent of views on webcam product pages on big online retail sites showed the items were out of stock during the week ended May 9.

    People’s shopping habits have shifted away from just buying bulk amounts of food during the pandemic to facing extended work-from-home periods, CommerceIQ CEO Guru Hariharan said.

    “Now, I think people are slowly starting to realize this is a new normal,” he said. “They realize they need to get prepared for a new operating normal.”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/05/21/webcam-backorder-coronavirus-pandemic/

Posted on

Supplier Report: 5/22/2020

The walls are starting to close in on Google. Rumors of an anti-trust lawsuit have been brewing for months. William Barr and the Department of Justice have been making claims in the press this week that actions will happen soon and that States may join their case or start their own for other infractions.

Gartner produced reports that IT spending will be down $300B this year due to COVID. But not for some companies as Microsoft, Uber, and Facebook are continuing to purchase companies like Grubhub and Giphy.

Acquisitions/Investments

  • Microsoft acquires Metaswitch in telecom push

    The move shows Microsoft’s efforts to target a single industry through inorganic deals rather than building expertise and technology in house. These efforts could help Microsoft gain further adoption of its Azure public cloud, which challenges market leader Amazon Web Services.

    “The convergence of cloud and communication networks presents a unique opportunity for Microsoft to serve operators globally via continued investment in Azure, adding additional depth to our hyperscale cloud infrastructure with the specialized software required to run virtualized communication functions, applications and networks,” Yousef Khalidi, a Microsoft corporate vice president, wrote in a blog post.

    Metaswitch has a 5G product for handling network traffic that can run on public cloud infrastructure. Customers could rely on the company’s software atop cloud infrastructure rather than adding capacity in their own data centers to support additional network use at higher speeds.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/14/microsoft-acquires-metaswitch-in-telecom-push.html

  • Restaurants should fear an Uber-Grubhub merger

    Companies like Uber, which dispatch contracted drivers and cyclists to pick up and deliver food from local and chain restaurants, have faced a wave of new criticism during the pandemic over their substantial markups and the steep revenue cuts they take from restaurants. Consolidating Uber and Grubhub would narrow an already-narrowed field, after GrubHub acquired Seamless and Eat24 and DoorDash bought Caviar. Meanwhile, delivery fees have generally been on the rise, and with less competition there would presumably be less pressure on Uber to compete for dollars from hungry shoppers.

    If the deal comes through, it will likely attract scrutiny from progressive Democrats. At the end of April, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York proposed the Pandemic Anti-Monopoly Act, a bill that would pause large mergers and acquisitions until “small businesses, workers, and consumers are no longer under severe financial distress.”

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90504454/restaurants-should-fear-an-uber-grubhub-merger

  • Facebook Buys Giphy, Will Make It Part of Instagram Operations

    Facebook said the graphics interchange format, or GIF, platform will be part of the company’s Instagram operations but didn’t disclose the terms of the deal. Facebook—which said its apps make up half of Giphy’s traffic—is going to “further integrate their GIF library into Instagram and our other apps.”

    Facebook also said Giphy will keep running its library of GIFs and digital stickers.

    News site Axios reported Facebook agreed to buy the GIF platform for around $400 million.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-buys-giphy-will-make-it-part-of-instagram-operations-11589561384

Software/SaaS

  • Microsoft makes OneDrive multi-page scanning available to all for free

    With so many people now working from home, few of us have access to office equipment like printers and scanners. Scanning documents from home, or outside the office, should be easy. Microsoft OneDrive has long offered a free scanning feature from the OneDrive mobile app which lets you scan and digitize single documents, receipts and more. Up until now, scanning multiple pages and saving them as single document was a premium feature that required a Microsoft 365 subscription. Today we’re making multi-page scanning available for everyone using a OneDrive personal account.

    https://mspoweruser.com/microsoft-makes-onedrive-multi-page-scanning-available-to-all-for-free/

  • Chrome will start blocking resource-demanding ads in August

    Google has discovered that a small percentage of ads (0.3 percent) are using a disproportionate amount (27 percent) of the network data used by ads in Chrome. These resource-demanding ads can drain battery life, saturate already strained networks and cost money, Google wrote in a blog post. So beginning this summer, Google will cap the resources a display ad can use in Chrome in order to protect users’ batteries and data plans.

    Chrome will set a threshold at 4MB of network data, 15 seconds of CPU usage in any 30-second period or 60 seconds of total CPU usage. If an ad reaches its limit before a user interacts with it, the ad frame will navigate to an error page and inform the user that the ad has used too many resources.

    Google plans to experiment with the feature over the next several months and to introduce it near the end of August. This should give ad creators and tool providers time to adapt.

    https://www.engadget.com/google-chrome-block-resource-heavy-ads-190622725.html

Infrastructure/Hardware

  • Gartner Predicts IT Spending Will Plummet By $300 Billion In 2020 As CIOs Slash Budgets

    Gartner’s estimate is the latest in a series of predictions by research firms that have become more and more pessimistic as the crisis has deepened. Last month, Enterprise Technology Research (ETR), which regularly polls IT leaders about their spending intentions, came up with a forecast suggesting a drop of around 5% in global spend for 2020. In the latter part of March, the feedback ETR had been getting from executives suggested spending would be flat year-on-year.

    While some companies are cutting big IT projects altogether, others are ploughing ahead but delaying some elements of their plans to save money. During an earnings call in April, Hershey CEO Michele Buck revealed the confectionery giant has paused parts of a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. It plans to advance with finance and data work streams but will delay supply chain and order-to-cash ones—moves that will push out full implementation of the ERP system by a year or so. On the same call, Hershey’s CFO said the company’s capital spending would be between $400 million and $450 million in 2020 versus an estimate of $500 million it had released in January.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/martingiles/2020/05/13/gartner-it-spending-will-plummet-in-2020-as-cios-slash-budgets/#7f41043711ca

  • U.S. Moves to Cut Off Chip Supplies to Huawei

    The restrictions stop foreign semiconductor manufacturers whose operations use U.S. software and technology from shipping products to Huawei without first getting a license from U.S. officials, essentially giving the U.S. Commerce Department a veto over the kinds of technology that Huawei can use.

    Under the new rules, the department can block the sale of semiconductors manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., for Huawei’s HiSilicon unit, which designs chips for the company, as well as chips and other software produced by manufacturing facilities in China and South Korea, which use American chip-making technology. The Commerce Department already had the ability to license software shipments from U.S.-based facilities.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-moves-to-cut-off-chip-supplies-to-huawei-11589545335

Other

  • Justice Department, State Attorneys General Likely to Bring Antitrust Lawsuits Against Google

    Much of the states’ investigation has focused on Google’s online advertising business. The company owns the dominant tool at every link in the complex chain between online publishers and advertisers. The Justice Department likewise is making Google’s ad technology one of its points of emphasis. But it is also focusing more broadly on concerns that Google uses its dominant search business to stifle competition, people familiar with the matter said.

    Details about the Justice Department’s legal theories for a case against Google couldn’t be learned.

    Though the coronavirus pandemic has complicated work for the Justice Department, Attorney General William Barrhas devoted considerable resources to the Google probe and continues to treat it as a top priority. Mr. Barr told The Wall Street Journal in March that he wanted the Justice Department to make a final call this summer. “I’m hoping that we bring it to fruition early summer,” Mr. Barr said at the time. “And by fruition I mean, decision time.”

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/justice-department-state-attorneys-general-likely-to-bring-antitrust-lawsuits-against-google-11589573622

  • A seventh Amazon employee dies of COVID-19 as the company refuses to say how many are sick

    Amazon has instituted new safety measures, including temperature checks, face masks, and increased cleaning. “Our top concern is ensuring the health and safety of our employees, and we expect to invest approximately $4 billion from April to June on COVID-related initiatives to get products to customers and keep employees safe,” the company said in a statement. The company also says infection rates at its warehouses are at or below the rates in the communities where they are located.

    But workers at IND8 and elsewhere say cleaning has been uneven and conditions are often too crowded to allow for proper social distancing. Many worry that recent policy changes put them at greater risk. This month, Amazon reversed a policy it instituted at the onset of the pandemic that allowed workers to take unlimited time off without pay. (Amazon is set to end another coronavirus policy, an additional $2 per hour of hazard pay, on June 1st.) The leave policy had allowed workers who feared for their safety — and could afford to go without a paycheck — to stay home without being fired for overdrawing their quarterly allotment of 20 hours of unpaid time off. When the policy ended on May 1st, workers say their facilities became far more crowded.

    “Before we had the unlimited UPT [unpaid time off] so if people didn’t feel safe, they didn’t have to come to work,” said a worker at IND8. “When that went away, we went from having one hundred twenty five people back to four to five hundred people per shift. It’s really crowded.”

    https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/14/21259474/amazon-warehouse-worker-death-indiana

  • Eric Schmidt reportedly left Google in February

    Schmidt hasn’t had a leading role at Google or Alphabet for a while. He left Google’s CEO role in 2011, and bowed out as Alphabet’s executive chairman in 2017 before departing the company’s board in 2019. An exit may have been more of a formality, especially as Schmidt was said to have made $1 per year as an advisor.

    Still, it’s the end of an era. Schmidt ran Google during its rapid growth from a search startup to a tech colossus that branched out into smartphones, email and numerous other fields. Sergey Brin and Larry Page hired him to offer Google serious business credibility and leadership, and to that extent he succeeded.

    https://www.engadget.com/eric-schmidt-leaves-google-201819195.html