There is good news for Amazon this week with reports that the company is securing BILLIONS of dollars of cloud contracts. Names like Apple, Slack, and Lyft have all recently reported long-term/big-money contracts with the company.
As Amazon’s cloud business continues to dominate and they put more energy into their advertising business – there should be concern with how the company is going to leverage their position for pricing and for privacy.
Additionally, with accusations that Apple is not playing fair with apps that compete with their own services, we have to ask ourselves if companies creating these enormous ecosystems are reliable business partners over the long term.
Acquisitions
- A $603 Million Deal Sheds Light on Cybersecurity Space
In a deal that puts a spotlight on the shadowy world of cyberwarfare, Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. agreed to acquire KeyW Holding Corp. for about $603 million, increasing its number of employees with top-secret government access by 50 percent.
While neither company is a household name, both have deep ties to Washington’s web of cyberintelligence specialists. Jacobs, a Dallas-based engineering firm with more than 80,000 employees, already gets about 23 percent of its $15 billion in annual revenue from the U.S. government. In the past three years, Jacobs has acquired two other cybersecurity firms in the greater Washington area — Reston, Virginia-based Blue Canopy and Columbia, Maryland-based Van Dyke Technology Group Inc.
Artificial Intelligence
- IBM’s head of HR says ‘100% of jobs are going to change’ with AI. Here’s how the tech giant is adapting.
To make it through these market changes, IBM had to assess what skills its workforce had, and what skills it now needed. That’s not an easy feat when you’re a giant, multinational business. Gherson said that the company turned to the technology that was partially responsible for this disruption: AI.
Instead of having managers work with each of their employees to map out their current skills and then work with other managers to see what skills were still needed, IBM automated the process. Internal software could analyze employees’ work experience and writings to infer what they excelled at. It prompted a cultural shift within the company.
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-ibm-is-using-artificial-intelligence-to-retrain-workers-2019-4
- The growing backlash against facial recognition tech
This month has made clear that public pressure is working when it comes to facial recognition. Behemoth companies know they can no longer ignore the criticisms — or, as they recently did, simply say they’d welcome regulation of this technology. Critics are making clear that’s not good enough — they want to see such companies “get out of the surveillance business altogether,” as the American Civil Liberties Union told Vox.
Meanwhile, several bills are being considered to limit the use of facial recognition. San Francisco could soon become the first US city to institute an all-out ban on local government use of the tech, if its Stop Secret Surveillance Ordinance passes. Neighboring cities like Oakland and Berkeley have already passed similar but slightly weaker ordinances. (Legislation along these lines was also introduced in the California state Senate, but was quashed after police opposed it.)
Cloud
- Amazon’s Profit More Than Doubles on 17% Rise in Sales
Expenses, however, are expected to jump in the second quarter in part because Amazon said it would invest $800 million to make one-day free shipping the standard for Prime members, instead of two days.
The e-commerce company’s bottom line got a big boost in the first quarter from its cloud-computing unit and burgeoning advertising business, helping to offset sluggish growth from the core online retail business. The profit more than doubled to well above what analysts were expecting.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazons-profit-more-than-doubles-on-17-rise-in-sales-11556224159
- Slack to spend at least $250 million on Amazon Web Services over five years — less than Pinterest or Lyft
Slack said on Friday that it has a hefty commitment to spend money with Amazon Web Services through 2023, though it’s not as big of a customer as other companies to recently go public, such as Lyft and Pinterest.
In 2018, Slack signed an agreement with AWS to spend at least $50 million a year over five years, for a total of at least $250 million, according to the company’s filing with the SEC for a public stock listing. As of Jan. 31, the contract has a remaining minimum payment of $212.5 million. Slack said it uses AWS, the leading public cloud vendor, “as our processing and delivery infrastructure.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/26/slack-to-spend-at-least-250-million-on-aws-over-five-years.html
- Apple Is Heavily Reliant on Amazon Web Services
Apple has previously mentioned that it uses Amazon’s AWS (Amazon Web Services) for its iCloud storage. It could also be using Amazon’s cloud service for some of its other services.
According to CNBC, this expenditure is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. According to the report, Apple has signed an agreement committing to spending a minimum of $1.5 billion on AWS over the next five years.
Many other companies are also heavily reliant on Amazon’s cloud service. According to CNBC, Lyft has an agreement worth over $300 million with AWS to power its service until the end of 2021.
https://articles.marketrealist.com/2019/04/apple-is-heavily-reliant-on-amazon-web-services/
Security
- Managing Risk in Light of the Wipro Data Breach
Wipro, the Bengaluru, India-based ITO and BPO services provider, confirmed on Tuesday, April 16th, that it fell victim to a data breach—specifically, an advanced and persistent “zero-day” malware attack. The attack may have begun in March as a phishing incident (an unauthorized attempt to access a target’s information systems, usually via fraudulent emails or other communication) involving one Wipro employee, and it has apparently led to a broader infiltration of Wipro’s email systems.
Initial reports have indicated that the attack may have impacted more than a dozen of Wipro’s customers, but the ongoing investigation has yet to uncover whether, and to what extent, those customers’ data are at risk.
Software/SaaS
- Apple accused of clamping down on apps competing with Screen Time
The introduction of Screen Time in iOS 12 was ostensibly a boon for parents and anyone else wanting to keep a lid on device use, but there are concerns that it’s cracking down on apps that compete with that feature. The New York Times and Sensor Tower have learned that Apple has either pulled or requested feature limitations for “at least” 11 of the 17 most popular parental control and screen time apps, and leaders at those developers claim it’s trying to discourage apps that rival Screen Time’s functionality. The creators of two apps, Kidslox and Qustodio, filed an EU competition complaint on April 25th.
https://www.engadget.com/2019/04/27/apple-clamp-down-on-screen-time-apps/
Infrastructure/Hardware
- Samsung reportedly pushes back Galaxy Fold release
Samsung is pushing things back a bit, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal that cites “people familiar with the matter.”
There’s no firm time frame for the launch, though the phone is still expected “in the coming weeks,” at some point in May. We’ve reached out to Samsung for comment and will update accordingly. When a number a reviewers reported malfunctioning displays among an extremely small sample size, that no doubt gave the company pause.
https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/22/samsung-reportedly-pushes-back-galaxy-fold-launch/
- Turnover Hits Apple’s Famed Industrial Design Team
Rico Zorkendorfer and Daniele De Iuliis, who together have more than 35 years of experience at Apple, decided to leave the company recently, people familiar with the departures said. Another member of the team with a decade of experience, Julian Hönig, plans to leave in the coming months, people familiar with his plans said.
The departures of members of the core design team that revived Apple in the 2000s and did the work behind the iPhone, iPad and watch come amid a pause in new products, as the company emphasizes new subscription services this year instead of new gadgets amid slowing iPhone sales. It also follows chief designer Jony Ive’s resumption a little over a year ago of day-to-day oversight for the industrial design group.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/turnover-hits-apples-famed-industrial-design-team-11556225563
- Comcast Is Surviving Big Media’s Horror Flick
While the company is losing cable subscribers as consumers cut the cord, it also is winning over more internet customers in need of high-speed connections to fuel their entertainment binge.
In other words, the grim reaper comes bearing unexpected gifts.
This dynamic was visible in Comcast’s first-quarter results. On Thursday it reported earnings of 77 cents a share, up from 66 cents a share in the same period last year, beating estimates of 68 cents a share. Revenue rose 18% to $26.86 billion, thanks partly to the company’s recent acquisition of Sky, the European pay-TV giant. It also was boosted by a 10% rise in Comcast’s high-speed internet revenue. The company said it added 375,000 customers in the period.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/comcast-is-surviving-big-medias-horror-flick-11556215034
Other
- Google Walkout Organizers Say They’re Facing Retaliation
Claire Stapleton, another walkout organizer and a 12-year veteran of the company, said in the email that two months after the protest she was told she would be demoted from her role as marketing manager at YouTube and lose half her reports. After escalating the issue to human resources, she said she faced further retaliation. “My manager started ignoring me, my work was given to other people, and I was told to go on medical leave, even though I’m not sick,” Stapleton wrote. After she hired a lawyer; the company conducted an investigation and seemed to reverse her demotion. “While my work has been restored, the environment remains hostile and I consider quitting nearly every day,” she wrote.
https://www.wired.com/story/google-walkout-organizers-say-theyre-facing-retaliation/
- Microsoft has become the third US company to achieve a trillion-dollar valuation
Microsoft revealed double-digit growth in its third-quarter financial results on Wednesday (April 24). Revenues grew by 14 percent to $30.6 billion, with profits climbing 19 percent to $8.8 billion. What really excited the stock market, however, was the 73 percent increase in revenues from Azure cloud services. This helped drive a five percent rise in Microsoft’s share price to $131.37, finally elevating it into the 13-digit club.
- Elon Musk, SEC agree to guidelines on Twitter use
Musk can tweet as he wishes except when it’s about certain events or financial milestones. In those cases, Musk must seek pre-approval from a securities lawyer, according to the agreement filed with Manhattan federal court.
U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan, the presiding judge on this matter, must still approve the deal. Nathan had given the SEC and Musk two weeks to work out their differences and come to a resolution.
https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/26/elon-musk-sec-agree-to-guidelines-on-twitter-use/
Photo by Sašo Tušar on Unsplash