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.
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.
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.”
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.
- 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.
- 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 identicalNow 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 designGoogle 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.
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).
- 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.
- 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/