Amazon executed a master maneuver via the split HQ2 announcement. The company is moving into 3 locations (NYC, Virginia, and Nashville) and gained invaluable access and data about cities across the east coast.
While some are unhappy about the news (including the places that won), the company set a precedent with local governments about how to frame a RFP to get maximum shareholder value. The question is… will there be backlash?
Meanwhile Facebook continues to fail in their attempts to regain the public’s and government’s trust.
Acquisitions
- Microsoft acquires AI and bot development house XOXCO
Microsoft is acquiring conversational AI and bot development software vendor XOXCO Inc. for an undisclosed amount. Microsoft announced its acquisition plans on November 14, the same day it is going public with a number of other AI product and service announcements.
Among its products are Howdy.ai, which Microsoft describes as “the first commercially available bot for Slack that helps schedule meetings.” Howdy assists with the creation of custom bots, including bots for work chat, bots for customer support and bots for marketing. XOXCO also sells Botkit, a collection of development tools for those working on GitHub. Microsoft has partnered with XOXCO for a number of years.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-acquires-ai-and-bot-development-house-xoxco/
- Oracle buys SD-WAN company Talari Networks
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Talari’s main product is its Failsafe technology, which is an SD-WAN platform used to connect enterprise networks such as branch offices and data centers over large geographic distances. WAN connections traditionally required special proprietary hardware, but the SD-WAN movement does away with this by moving network control into the cloud using a software approach.
https://siliconangle.com/2018/11/15/oracle-buys-sd-wan-company-talari-networks/
- Analysts weighing in on $8B SAP-Qualtrics deal don’t see a game changer
Tony Byrne, founder and principal analyst at Real Story Group, says he likes what Qualtrics brings to SAP, but he is not sure it’s quite as big a deal as McDermott suggests. “Qualtrics enables you to do more sophisticated forms of research which marketers certainly want, but the double benefit is that — unlike SurveyMonkey and others — Qualtrics has experience on the digital workplace side, which could complement some of SAP’s HR tooling.” But he adds that it’s not really the central CEM piece, and that his company’s research has found that SAP still has holes, particularly when it comes to marketing tools and technologies (MarTech).
- Kofax to buy Nuance’s imaging division for $400M in cash
The acquisition is a notable move for Kofax — itself acquired by Thoma Bravo last year in a $1.5 billion deal — as it continues to build up its business in Robotic Process Automation (RPA), the area of enterprise IT services that uses machine learning, computer vision and other AI-based tools to bring automation to repetitive or mundane back-office tasks that would have in the past been done by humans. (The idea is that this frees up the humans to make more sophisticated assessments in specific cases, or focus on entirely different tasks.)
https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/12/kofax-to-buy-nuances-imaging-division-for-400m-in-cash/
Artificial Intelligence
- Amazon Says It Has Over 10,000 Employees Working on Alexa, Echo
Amazon announced its decision Tuesday on those two locations, after its yearlong review of possible cities to establish a second headquarters. Mr. Limp said Amazon picked them because of the availability of talent.
“The tie went to where we could recruit and where people would want to live,” Mr. Limp said.
Amazon said in September 2017 it had 5,000 employees working on Alexa and Echo. The company’s total workforce has grown 13% to more than 600,000 over the past year.
- Did IBM overhype Watson Health’s AI promise?
In July, the healthcare news publication Stat published a report claiming “internal IBM documents” showed the Watson supercomputer often spit out erroneous cancer treatment advice and that company medical specialists and customers identified “multiple examples of unsafe and incorrect treatment recommendations,” even as IBM was promoting its AI technology.
Stat cited several slide decks it had obtained from a presentation made by IBM Watson Health’s deputy chief health officer in 2016. The slides mostly blamed problems on the training of Watson by IBM engineers and staff at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC).
Cloud
- Former Oracle exec Thomas Kurian to replace Diane Greene as head of Google Cloud
The company had a disparate set of cloud services when she took over, and one of the first things Greene did was to put them all under a single Google Cloud umbrella. “We’ve built a strong business together — set up by integrating sales, marketing, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and Google Apps/G Suite into what is now called Google Cloud,” she wrote in the blog post.
As for Kurian, he stepped down as president of product development at Oracle at the end of September. He had announced a leave of absence earlier in the month before making the exit permanent. Like Greene before him, he brings a level of enterprise street cred, which the company needs as it continues to try to grow its cloud business.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/16/former-oracle-exec-thomas-kurian-to-replace-diane-greene-as-head-of-google-cloud/
Google’s Cloud-Computing Boss, Diane Greene, to Step DownGoogle’s hiring of Mr. Kurian could suggest the company will consider making a bid for Red Hat Inc., the software-and-services company that International Business Machines agreed to acquire last month for $33 billion, Mr. Reback said. Red Hat would provide Google with the sales and support muscle, as well as credibility with corporate tech buyers, that it lacks, Mr. Reback said.
- Oracle’s JEDI protest denied
GAO denied Oracle’s protest and said that a single award strategy did not violate federal laws and procurement regulations — one of Oracle’s key arguments.
“The Defense Department’s decision to pursue a single-award approach to obtain these cloud services is consistent with applicable statutes (and regulations) because the agency reasonably determined that a single-award approach is in the government’s best interests for various reasons, including national security concerns, as the statute allows,” GAO said in a statement announcing its ruling.
https://washingtontechnology.com/blogs/editors-notebook/2018/11/oracle-lost-jedi-protest.aspx
Software/SaaS
- Zuckerberg Defends Company in Friday Meeting With Employees
Some Facebook employees indicated that they believe The Times and other news outlets are unfairly targeting the company because of its outsize influence — a sentiment shared in the session on Friday when employees asked executives what would happen to employees who leak information to the press.
Mr. Zuckerberg made it clear that Facebook would not hesitate to fire employees who spoke to The New York Times or other publications. But after an employee asked whether the company should issue a report about how many leakers Facebook had found and fired, Mr. Zuckerberg played down the idea.
Leaks, he said, are usually caused by “issues with morale.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/17/technology/facebook-mark-zuckerberg.html
- Facebook Fallout Ruptures Democrats’ Longtime Alliance With Silicon Valley
Facebook previously signaled that it was ready to work with Mr. Warner and others in Congress on new regulation. Yet at the same time, Facebook turned to a conservative opposition research firm that sought to undermine detractors by publicizing financial links to Mr. Soros, a harsh critic of both Facebook and Google.
The revelations angered Democrats, who accused Facebook of tapping into anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about Mr. Soros — the very kind of propaganda the company has claimed to be battling. Facebook has denied that the effort was anti-Semitic.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/17/technology/facebook-democrats-congress.html
Other
- Amazon, Google Poised for Race to Hire High-Tech Talent
Amazon will bring more than 25,000 jobs to New York and another 25,000 to Northern Virginia, it announced Tuesday. Google, meanwhile, plans to double its workforce in New York City to more than 14,000 workers over the next ten years, its chief financial officer said Monday at The Wall Street Journal’s WSJ Tech D.Live conference.
The competition for talent will be stiff, recruiters say. But the two companies each have some distinct requirements that set them apart from other employers—and from each other, according to an analysis that labor-analytics firm Burning Glass Technologies conducted for the Journal. For example, the companies favor different coding languages and technical approaches for software projects.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-google-chase-software-developersbut-not-the-same-ones-1542133719
New York politicians push back on Amazon HQ2 plans“Amazon is a billion-dollar company,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote. “The idea that it will receive hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks at a time when our subway is crumbling and our communities need MORE investment, not less, is extremely concerning to residents here.”
https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/14/new-york-politicians-push-back-on-amazon-hq2-plans/
What Is Amazon Getting From New York City and Virginia?Incentives from New York state: $1.525 billion, including:
- $1.2 billion in refundable tax credits from state’s Excelsior Program over 10 years, based on the creation of 25,000 jobs that pay an average of $150,000.
- $325 million from Empire State Development based on how much space Amazon takes over the next decade.
Incentives from New York City:
- Amazon said it would apply for a New York City subsidy program that would provide it property-tax abatements for up to 25 years.
- The company also is to seek incentives under a city program that could provide $3,000 in tax credits per eligible employee over 12 years, implying a $900 million benefit if all 25,000 workers are eligible. Amazon may also be eligible for other tax credits.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-is-amazon-getting-from-new-york-city-and-virginia-1542127124
Photo by Mael BALLAND on Unsplash