IBM is coming under fire by Jefferies and competitor OpenText over their AI success (or lack of it). Jefferies says IBM customers are suffering from complicated implementations and OpenText claims that their AI platform is better and cheaper.
Google is hoping to leverage AI technology to make the world a better place. And what better way to improve the world than to buy a small AI company in India (…that does have a social focus).
Meanwhile Verizon made the world a slightly worse place by announcing a security breach that could impact up to 14 million customers.
Acquisitions
- Google’s new AI acquisition aims to fix developing world problems
While Halli Labs is still in its infancy, the company’s founder — Pankaj Gupta — is a data scientist who has worked at Twitter as well as defunct Indian Airbnb competitor Stayzilla. Google buying AI firms is hardly shocking news, but the tech giant’s focus on expanding into developing markets is what separates this from other recent acquisitions. With Google previously introducing region-specific offline versions of apps and even installing Wi-Fi into Indian train stations, the tech behemoth has already shown its interest in making life easier for the country’s growing population of internet users.
https://www.engadget.com/2017/07/12/googles-new-ai-acquisition-aims-to-fix-developing-world-problem/
- DXC Technology Acquires Tribridge
End-to-end IT services company DXC Technology has acquired Tribridge, a software services and cloud solutions company, and Concerto Cloud Services, ribridge’s hybrid solutions and advisory services affiliate. Under the purchase agreement, effective on the date of acquisition, Tribridge has been renamed Tribridge, a DXC Technology Company. Concerto Cloud Services will go to market as DXC Concerto. Financial terms of the purchase were not disclosed. Tribridge is one of the largest independent integrators of Microsoft Dynamics 365.
http://www.retailtouchpoints.com/features/mergers-and-acquisitions/dxc-technology-acquires-tribridge
- Micro Focus shares slump as HP deal approaches
Micro Focus’s executive chairman has dismissed a sharp drop in the technology company’s shares as investors nervously approached its huge takeover of Hewlett Packard’s software division.
The FTSE 100 group’s share price fell by 8.1pc despite its full-year results being in line with market expectations, with shareholders wavering ahead of the $8.8bn (£6.8bn) acquisition of HP Enterprise Software, an arm of the US tech giant.
The takeover, which is due to go through on September 1, will be one of Britain’s biggest ever technology deals, with the HP business accounting for more than half of the combined company’s revenues.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/07/12/micro-focus-shares-slump-hp-deal-approaches/
- Amazon wasn’t the only company that tried to buy Whole Foods
The document cites a “Company X” that expressed interest in having exploratory conversations in mid-April, but did not make a formal offer. Reuters has identified that company as Albertsons groceries.
Artificial Intelligence
- Microsoft to use AI to assist the blind, fix bias, and rescue the planet
In order to make sure that further developments are pursued in the proper fashion—accessible and inclusive to everyone—Microsoft also noted that it is working on an Ethical Design Guide for AI product development, based on CEO Satya Nadella’s 10 principles for AI development.
“As technology that uses AI gets smarter, we want to ensure that we take a responsible approach to our progress – and one that will ultimately provide the most benefit to our customers and to society as a whole,” Shum said at the event.
- Jefferies gives IBM Watson a Wall Street reality check
Jefferies pulls from an audit of a partnership between IBM Watson and MD Anderson as a case study for IBM’s broader problems scaling Watson. MD Anderson cut its ties with IBM after wasting $60 million on a Watson project that was ultimately deemed, “not ready for human investigational or clinical use.”
The MD Anderson nightmare doesn’t stand on its own. I regularly hear from startup founders in the AI space that their own financial services and biotech clients have had similar experiences working with IBM.
The narrative isn’t the product of any single malfunction, but rather the result of overhyped marketing, deficiencies in operating with deep learning and GPUs and intensive data preparation demands.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/13/jefferies-gives-ibm-watson-a-wall-street-reality-check/?ncid=rss
IBM’s Watson, Despite Hype, Outgunned in A.I., Says JefferiesKisner compiles his own estimates for Watson and finds them “somewhat disappointing for investors,” with IBM in the best scenario “barely recouping its cost of capital.”
“From an EPS perspective, it seems unlikely to us under almost any scenario that Watson will generate meaningful earnings results over the next few years,” he writes. “In our Base case, Watson and associated “pull-through revenue” contributes 3% to Consensus EPS in 2019; in the Bull case, it’s still only 5%.”
http://www.barrons.com/articles/ibms-watson-despite-hype-outgunned-in-a-i-says-jefferies-1499896835
- OpenText launches Magellan, an AI platform aimed at IBM’s Watson
OpenText is using an open source approach with Magellan with integration with Apache Spark and MLlib, a machine learning library. “We are combining the strengths of OpenText and the open source community,” said Adam Howatson, chief marketing officer at OpenText.
Magellan’s approach will be to enable customers to leverage open source intellectual property and algorithms as well enabling companies to build their own models. Howatson added that OpenText’s Magellan platform will have a lower price point, be available as an appliance and be available on premises or via the cloud.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/opentext-launches-magellan-an-ai-platform-aimed-at-ibms-watson/
OpenText CEO on AI: Buying IBM may cost you your job (LMAO Mark Barrenechea)In a press conference following the announcement, Channelnomics asked Barrenechea how opportunities Magellan enables for resellers differs from those enabled by IBM Watson. The CEO responded by saying that while he’s doubtful of the idea of robots resulting in the loss of IT jobs, buying IBM technology may yield a different result.
“I do think you lose your job if you buy IBM, and it’s our mission to crush that theme,” Barrenechea said. “That old adage ‘If you buy IBM you won’t lose your job’, I think, is dead. They are locked into their little swim lanes, and opening up insights into all those transactional systems is going to be very hard for them. It’s certainly proving to be massively expensive.”
The CEO claimed that IBM Watson’s information lake is a “swamp of data”, adding that Magellan is different in its centric applications, focus on automation, AI and APIs and integration between transaction and AI system.
https://www.channelnomics.com/channelnomics-us/news/3013620/opentext-launches-ai-rival-to-ibm-watson
Cloud
- Workday finally pops for a PaaS – 10 questions it needs to answer
In an unusual move, Aneel Bhusri Workday CEO took to the company’s blog to announce an intention for Workday to offer a platform upon which partners can extend the core Workday applications.
If we take the example of Salesforce, that company has never had intentions of entering certain verticals or, for that matter, certain horizontals but by offering a platform (Force.com) upon which developers can knock themselves out, Salesforce has spawned a multi-billion dollar ecosystem from which it too benefits. The most immediate examples that spring to mind are Apttus in CPQ, FinancialForce in financials and Rootstock in manufacturing, all of which are built upon Salesforce’s PaaS.
Datacenter
- Dell struggling after EMC purchase
The $67-billion deal closed last September, so the new partnership is still in its very early stages, but early indications are that the arrangement hasn’t yet fared well, said Will Mitchell, a professor of strategic management at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.
“It doesn’t mean that he can’t turn it around, but it better happen fast,” Mitchell said of Dell Founder, Chairman and CEO Michael Dell.
Dell’s losses have actually only grown since the EMC deal went through. The company lost $1.5 billion In the first quarter of fiscal 2018, which ended in May. In the same quarter the year prior, Dell lost $139 million.
- HPE wants to grow again, announces new products and services to do it
Whitman said that, according to IDC, more than half of enterprises have, or are considering bringing workloads back on-prem from the public cloud, thanks to what she referred to as the cloud cliff.
“The cloud is absolutely the right choice for certain applications and use cases,” she said. But at some point, “they hit what we call the cloud cliff, where either for reasons of control, security, performance or cost, the platform they went with is no longer the best option.” That’s when moving to a hybrid environment makes sense.
Also:
While HPE has spun off its enterprise services into DXC, it still retains a robust technology services organization. Now branded Pointnext, HPE says it “helps customers harness the power of hybrid IT, real-time data and analytics, and mobile solutions to enhance customer experiences, create and deliver new digital product and services, and improve core operations at unprecedented speed and efficiency.”
Software/SaaS
- IBM: A Future Blockchain Leader?
Given the low level of blockchain maturity in general, as well as specific IBM blockchain projects (more on these in the succeeding sections) being in their initial stages, it is too early to assess revenue from specific solutions. However, given the traction that IBM’s cloud-as-a-service offering seems to be getting with over 400 client engagements, blockchain has the potential to become one of the fastest-growing sources of revenue starting in 2017, when many of the first IBM enterprise applications are scheduled to roll out.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4086778-ibm-future-blockchain-leader
Other
- Millions of Verizon customers affected by security breach
Verizon confirmed that a recent security incident exposed the personal identification numbers and other private information pertaining to millions of telecom customers.
Six million unique Verizon user accounts were affected by a data breach suffered by a third-party vendor detected last month, Verizon said Wednesday.
UpGuard, a Silicon Valley security firm that first reported the data breach, said as many as 14 million Verizon accounts may have been affected.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jul/13/millions-verizon-customers-impacted-security-breac/
- Paying Professors: Inside Google’s Academic Influence Campaign
Google has paid professors whose papers, for instance, declared that the collection of consumer data was a fair exchange for its free services; that the company didn’t use its market dominance to improperly steer users to Google’s commercial sites or its advertisers; and that it hasn’t unfairly quashed competitors. Several papers argued that Google’s search engine should be allowed to link to books and other intellectual property that authors and publishers say should be paid for—a group that includes News Corp, which owns the Journal. News Corp formally complained to European regulators about Google’s handling of news articles in search results.
- Microsoft CIO Jim DuBois departs amid layoffs; Kurt DelBene named chief digital officer
DuBois was on sabbatical and decided to leave Microsoft as part of the reorganization of its global sales staff, which also includes thousands of job cuts. DuBois was named CIO in 2013, and he had been with Microsoft since 1993, where he worked in a variety of roles, mostly focused on information technology.
Kurt DelBene is stepping up to fill the void of DuBois’ departure under his new title of chief digital officer. DelBene currently focuses on corporate strategy, and his new role will also see him working closely with core engineering teams across the company as well as IT. DelBene will also oversee the company’s digital transformation efforts.
- Microsoft’s Calibri font is at the center of a political scandal
Pakistan’s government is in trouble. And its fate may hinge on a Microsoft font. Judicial investigators probing the financial assets of the country’s Prime Minister and his family allege his daughter (and apparent successor) forged documents to hide her ownership of overseas properties. How did they reach that conclusion? The documents from 2006 submitted by Maryam Nawaz (daughter of PM Nawaz Sharif) were in the Calibri font. That font, according to the investigation team’s leaked report, wasn’t publicly available until 2007.
https://www.engadget.com/2017/07/12/microsoft-calibri-pakistan-fontgate/
- Accenture handed $26M in Centrelink payments system overhaul
Accenture Australia has been granted just over $26 million by the Government for the provision of systems integration services as part of the Department of Human Services’ landmark Centrelink payments system overhaul.
Accenture’s latest purchase order for the project, the contract terms of which run from 26 May to 28 February 2018, was awarded via the Department of Human Service’s ‘Systems integrators for the provision of services related to WPIT [Welfare Payment Infrastructure Transformation]’ procurement panel, according to tender documents.
https://www.arnnet.com.au/article/621596/accenture-handed-26m-centrelink-systems-overhaul/
Photo: danist soh