SourceCast: Episode 125: Profit vs. Integrity
Supplier Report: 6/22/2018
IBM was in the news this week for (mostly) all the right reasons… they bought a company and they developed an argumentative AI. Can this breakthrough actually bring in money for Big Blue?
Oracle reported decent earnings this quarter, but their stock still took a hit. In the following days, many articles highlighted that Oracle is combining certain sales metrics to hide the exact number of cloud sales happening (vs. legacy software).
Amazon shareholders are begging the company not to move forward with providing law enforcement facial recognition software that has been in development citing potential civil rights violations.
Acquisitions
- IBM acquires Oniqua to bolster its Industrial IoT business
Founded in 2000, Qniqua is a global innovator in Maintenance Repair and Operations (MRO) Inventory Optimization solutions and services focused on mining, oil & gas, transportation, utilities, manufacturing and other asset-intensive industries. Qniqua’s focus is on helping asset-intensive companies reduce costs and eliminate waste through advanced analytics and value services. It’s our pursuit and our passion, and one that every Oniqua employee is committed to delivering.
https://techstartups.com/2018/06/15/ibm-acquires-oniqua-bolster-industrial-iot-business/
- The court’s decision to let AT&T and Time Warner merge is ridiculously bad
But neither Facebook nor Google owns the ultimate distribution layer of the consumer connection to the internet. They aren’t the world’s largest telecom company. Neither is Netflix or Amazon or any of the other companies AT&T and Time Warner are afraid of. (Yes, I know Google owns Google Fiber, but that has been more failure than success.)
Tech companies might have vertically integrated the creation and production of content with consumer-facing apps and services, but they all depend on internet connections to reach their audiences. And those connections are increasingly wireless. AT&T and Time Warner aren’t trying to catch up to Netflix by merging; they’re trying to step ahead of them in line by marrying Time Warner’s content to AT&T’s network.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/15/17468612/att-time-warner-acquisition-court-decision
- AT&T in Talks to Acquire AppNexus for About $1.6 Billion
Acquiring AppNexus would advance AT&T’s ambitions to build a robust advertising business. AppNexus operates one of the largest online ad exchanges, automated marketplaces that allow advertisers to buy space across thousands of websites, targeting their desired audiences.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/at-t-in-talks-to-acquire-appnexus-for-about-1-6-billion-1529464400
- Microsoft is buying AI startup, Bonsai
The company specializes in reinforcement learning, a kind of trial and error approach to teach a system within the confines of a simulation. That learning can be used to train autonomous systems to complete specific tasks. Microsoft says the acquisition will serve to forward the kind of research the company has been pursuing in the field by leveraging its Azure cloud platform.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/20/microsoft-is-buying-a-ai-startup-bonsai/
Artificial Intelligence
- IBM Watson Health downsizes its work with hospitals
IBM Watson Health leadership reportedly told employees June 13 it plans to refocus its business strategy, which includes cutting down on its work with hospital clients, according to STAT.
Because of changes to the ACA, hospitals aren’t as willing to spend resources managing their pay-for-performance contracts, executives told employees, although they did not specify which changes to the law are affecting the shift in IBM’s strategy. STAT suggested the main driver could be some of the changes the Trump administration made to the law’s reimbursement models.
- IBM Unveils System That ‘Debates’ With Humans
IBM’s system was designed to debate about 100 topics, but these interactions are tightly constrained: a four-minute opening statement followed by a rebuttal to its opponent’s argument — and then a statement summing up its own viewpoint. It was not exactly Lincoln v. Douglas.
Subsidized space exploration, the machine said during its opening statement, “inspires our children to pursue education and careers in science and technology and mathematics.”
Noam Slonim, an IBM researcher who helped oversee the project, estimated that the technology could have a “meaningful” debate on those 100 topics 40 percent of the time. IBM chose the topic for the live debate before it began. In some cases, the machine’s lengthy speeches hinted at how it was stitching together its arguments — identifying relevant sentences and clauses and then combining them into a reasonably coherent, computerized thought.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/18/technology/ibm-debater-artificial-intelligence.html
This is cute IBM… I want to read an article about IBM actually selling some of this awesome argumentative ai technology to a paying customer. Time to get out of the lab!
Cloud
- Oracle’s Cloud Thickens
The corporate software giant said late Tuesday that revenues from its cloud services businesses jumped 25% year over year to $1.7 billion for its fiscal fourth quarter that ended May 31. That was better than the 19% to 23% rise the company projected three months ago—a projection so disappointing that it took Oracle’s stock price down 8% in response. Cloud revenues are now significant, making up nearly 16% of the company’s total for the last fiscal year compared with just 8% two years ago. Overall revenue for the quarter rose a much more modest 3.3% to $11.3 billion, though it should also be noted that Oracle ended its fiscal year with its best annual growth rate in seven years.
The problem is that the business that was the main engine of Oracle’s recent growth will be harder to analyze in the future. Oracle changed its reporting structure so that results from the closely watched cloud segment are now folded into the much larger unit that includes software license updates and support for Oracle’s older, legacy software business. That business grows at a much slower rate. The company says the change is necessitated by its new practice of selling software licenses that cover both traditional software and cloud offerings.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/oracles-cloud-thickens-1529506558
Security
- French media plan to meet with government over Google-GDPR concerns
The impact of Google’s GDPR approach were felt across Europe as soon as it took effect. In France, volume demand dropped by as much as 50 percent for some independent ad tech vendors, while some publishers’ programmatic ad revenues dropped 70 percent, according to Gié. Google moved quickly to rectify the issue, with the result that several of the major exchanges such as AppNexus were reintegrated into Google’s ad-buying ecosystem in the days after May 25. Today, business is almost back to normal as more and more exchanges have been reintegrated, according to sources. But some vendors still aren’t on Google’s vendor whitelist, which has meant certain publishers’ programmatic ad revenues are suffering as a direct result, said Gié.
https://digiday.com/media/french-media-plan-meet-government-concern-google-gdpr/
- Amazon shareholders call for halt of facial recognition sales to police
The shareholders, which include the Social Equity Group and Northwest Coalition for Responsible Investment, are joining groups such as the ACLU in efforts to stop the company from selling the service — pointing out the risks of mass surveillance.
They warn about potential civil and human rights violations, and how Amazon’s involvement could have a negative impact on the company’s stock. The shareholders point to the recent scrutiny of Facebook (FB) over privacy and data as a cautionary tale.
http://money.cnn.com/2018/06/18/technology/amazon-facial-recognition/index.html
Software/SaaS
- Here’s why the one-size-fits-all relational database model is dead
Seldom can one database fit the needs of multiple distinct use cases. The days of the one-size-fits-all monolithic database are behind us, and developers are now building highly distributed applications using a multitude of purpose-built databases. Developers are doing what they do best: breaking complex applications into smaller pieces and then picking the best tool to solve each problem. The best tool for a job usually differs by use case.
- Adobe could be the next $10 billion software company
Revenue was up across all major business lines, but as has been the norm, the vast majority comes from the company’s bread and butter, Creative Cloud, which houses the likes of Photoshop, InDesign and Dreamweaver, among others. In fact digital media, which includes Creative Cloud and Document Cloud accounted for $1.55 billion of the $2.2 billion in total revenue. The vast majority of that, $1.30 billion was from the creative side of the house with Document Cloud pulling in $243 million.
Adobe has been mostly known as a creative tools company until recent years when it also moved into marketing, analytics and advertising. Recently it purchased Magento for $1.6 billion, giving it a commerce component to go with those other pieces. Clearly Adobe has set its sights on Salesforce, which also has a strong marketing component and is not coincidentally perhaps, the most recently crowned $10 billion software company.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/15/adobe-could-be-the-next-10-billion-software-company/
Datacenter/Hardware
- Chip Makers: We’ll End Up Paying Tariffs on Our Own Goods
While the U.S. tariffs may impair Chinese companies that use semiconductors, among others, the fallout also will extend to U.S. businesses that participate in the complex supply chain of chip manufacturing, the Semiconductor Industry Association said.
That is because most chips American companies import from China are designed in the U.S. The manufacturing of many components in those chips often starts in the U.S. as well, before they are shipped to China for assembly, testing and packaging.
The tariffs will force American companies to pay duties on their own products, some of which were initially built in the U.S., the trade group said, adding that the imposition “fails to address the serious IP and industrial policy issues in China.”
Other
- Microsoft Employees Protest Work With ICE, as Tech Industry Mobilizes Over Immigration
“We believe that Microsoft must take an ethical stand, and put children and families above profits,” said the letter, which was addressed to the chief executive, Satya Nadella. The letter pointed to a $19.4 million contract that Microsoft has with ICE for processing data and artificial intelligence capabilities.
Calling the separation of families “inhumane,” the employees added: “As the people who build the technologies that Microsoft profits from, we refuse to be complicit. We are part of a growing movement, comprised of many across the industry who recognize the grave responsibility that those creating powerful technology have to ensure what they build is used for good, and not for harm.”
**
The letter is part of a wave of tech workers mobilizing this week against the Trump administration’s new “zero tolerance” policy that refers for criminal prosecution all immigrants apprehended crossing the border without authorization. The policy has resulted in about 2,000 children being separated from their migrant parents, raising a bipartisan outcry.https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/technology/tech-companies-immigration-border.html
- A complete 5G standard is finally here
“Two years ago, 5G was seen as a vision or even just a hype — with the closing of Rel-15, 3GPP has made 5G a reality within a very short time,” Georg Mayer, chairman of 3GPP CT, said in a statement. “The outcome is an amazing set of standards that will not only provide higher data rates and bandwidth to end customers but which is open and flexible enough to satisfy the communication needs of different industries — 5G will be the integration platform for heterogeneous businesses.”
A number of companies are already gearing up for 5G including Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile and AT&T. “This milestone will allow for more advanced testing using standards-compliant equipment and paves the way for our commercial 5G launch in a dozen cities later this year,” AT&T said in a statement.
https://www.engadget.com/2018/06/15/complete-5g-standard-finally-here/
Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash
Supplier Report: 6/15/2018
The DOJ said it would not block AT&T’s $85B acquisition of Time Warner on Thursday, within hours the acquisition was deemed complete. AT&T wasn’t the only company making moves… Workday bought TWO companies and data analytics companies Slack and Tableau both announced acquisitions this week.
Amazon was in the press for poor labor conditions in their Alexa supply chain. Foxconn workers making the devices have been found to be mistreated and underpaid. Amazon’s own audit of the situation confirms the report.
Oracle shares dropped due to a JP Morgan CIO report documenting a decrease of purchasing interest of Oracle products and services from IT executives.
Acquisitions
- AT&T Completes Acquisition of Time Warner Inc.
Under the terms of the merger, Time Warner Inc. shareholders received 1.4 shares of AT&T common stock, in addition to $53.75 in cash, per share of Time Warner Inc. As a result, AT&T issued 1,185M shares of common stock and paid $42.5B in cash. Including net debt from Time Warner, we now have $180.4B in net debt.
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180614006343/en/ATT-Completes-Acquisition-Time-Warner
- Workday acquires Rallyteam to fuel machine learning efforts
In this case, Workday appears to be acquiring the talent. It wants to take the Rallyteam team and incorporate it into the company’s engineering unit to beef up its machine learning efforts, while taking advantage of the expertise it has built up over the years connecting employees with interesting internal projects.
“With Rallyteam, we gain incredible team members who created a talent mobility platform that uses machine learning to help companies better understand and optimize their workforces by matching a worker’s interests, skills and connections with relevant jobs, projects, tasks and people,” Workday’s Cristina Goldt wrote in a blog post announcing the acquisition.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/08/workday-acquires-rallyteam-to-fuel-machine-learning-efforts/
- Workday acquires financial modelling startup Adaptive Insights for $1.55B
Workday, the cloud-based platform that offers HR and other back-office apps for businesses, is making an acquisition to expand its portfolio of services: It’s buying Adaptive Insights, a provider of cloud-based business planning and financial modelling tools, for $1.55 billion. The acquisition is notable because Adaptive Insights had filed for an IPO as recently as May 17.
Workday says that the $1.55 billion price tag includes “the assumption of approximately $150 million in unvested equity issued to Adaptive Insights employees” related to that IPO. This deal is expected to close in Q3 of this year.
- Tableau gets AI shot in the arm with Empirical Systems acquisition
The startup was born just two years ago from research on automated statistics at the MIT Probabilistic Computing Project. According to the company website, “Empirical is an analytics engine that automatically models structured, tabular data (such as spreadsheets, tables, or csv files) and allows those models to be queried to uncover statistical insights in data.”
The product was still in private Beta when Tableau bought the company. It is delivered currently as an engine embedded inside other applications. That sounds like something that could slip in nicely into the Tableau analytics platform. What’s more, it will be bringing the engineering team on board for some AI knowledge, while taking advantage of this underlying advanced technology.
- Splunk to Acquire Software Problem-Solver VictorOps for $120 Million
Big data-cruncher Splunk is acquiring VictorOps, a Boulder, Colo.-based startup whose tools help software developers collaborate and resolve engineering issues, for $120 million mostly in cash with some stock equity. The deal is expected to close before August.
VictorOps’ tech brings together software engineers so they can overcome technical issues as they arise. The system generates notifications, pulls relevant parties into chat groups, presents pertinent documents, and keeps detailed records as teams work through coding problems.
http://fortune.com/2018/06/11/splunk-acquire-software-startup-victorops/
Artificial Intelligence
- Accenture wants to beat unfair AI with a professional toolkit
“We’re seeing increasing focus on algorithmic bias, fairness. Just this past week we’ve had Singapore announce an AI ethics board. Korea announce an AI ethics board. In the US we already have industry creating different groups — such as The Partnership on AI. Google just released their ethical guidelines… So I think industry leaders, as well as non-tech companies, are looking for guidance. They are looking for standards and protocols and something to adhere to because they want to know that they are safe in creating products.
“It’s not an easy task to think about these things. Not every organization or company has the resources to. So how might we better enable that to happen? Through good legislation, through enabling trust, communication. And also through developing these kinds of tools to help the process along.”
https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/09/accenture-wants-to-beat-unfair-ai-with-a-professional-toolkit/
Cloud
- Oracle shares drop after JP Morgan downgrades on lost business to Amazon and Microsoft
Oracle’s “specific metrics in our large-scale CIO survey have arced over into negative territory, which makes us uncomfortable because the results of our CIO surveys over the years have been highly predictive,” analyst Mark Murphy said in a note to clients Thursday. “Oracle spending intentions have only looked lukewarm in our CIO survey work in the recent past, but the data takes a dive in the current survey. … In our discussions, CIOs have clarified that they are migrating Oracle databases to Microsoft SQL Server, Amazon databases and PostgreSQL.”
Software/SaaS
- Microsoft will ‘lose developers for a generation’ if it stuffs up GitHub, says future CEO
“We are buying GitHub because we like GitHub; our plan is to continue to invest in the GitHub roadmap, and make GitHub better at being GitHub,” Friedman wrote.
That means no ads in public repos, because Friedman said Sourceforge became “a swamp of banner ads and pop ups and delayed downloads to expose users to more ads”. He added that “GitHub’s clean interface and developer-centric approach can be seen in part as a reaction against Sourceforge” and suggested GitHub’s ascendency shows a no-ads approach has proven the correct approach.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/06/08/nat_friedman_github_ceo_elect_ama_session/
- Yahoo Messenger is shutting down on July 17, redirects users to group messaging app Squirrel
“There currently isn’t a replacement product available for Yahoo Messenger,” the company writes. “We’re constantly experimenting with new services and apps, one of which is an invite-only group messaging app called Yahoo Squirrel (currently in beta).” Squirrel is a group messaging app Yahoo started testing last month. You can request access to the beta here.
Datacenter/Hardware
- IBM and the DoE launch the world’s fastest supercomputer
Summit, which has been in the works for a few years now, features 4,608 compute servers with two 22-core IBM Power9 chips and six Nvidia Tesla V100 GPUs each. In total, the system also features over 10 petabytes of memory. Given the presence of the Nvidia GPUs, it’s no surprise that the system is meant to be used for machine learning and deep learning applications, as well as the usual high performance computing workloads for research in energy and advanced materials that you would expect to happen at Oak Ridge.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/08/ibms-new-summit-supercomputer-for-the-doe-delivers-200-petaflops/
- Qualcomm Is Cutting Up to Half of Jobs in Data-Center Unit
The company will eliminate 241 positions at its design center in Raleigh, North Carolina, and 43 in California, according to notices filed with those states. The total number of cuts, including those not covered by such notices, will represent a third to half of the server-chip unit’s employees, according to a person familiar with the process. The reduction comes on top of the previously announced elimination of about 1,500 workers across the company.
Other
- Verizon CEO to Retire, Succeeded by a Newcomer
Verizon Communications Inc. VZ 0.35% named Hans Vestberg as its next chief executive, choosing a relative newcomer to run the wireless giant at a time when its industry is being reshaped by megadeals.
Mr. Vestberg, who joined the company about a year ago and is its chief technology officer, will succeed longtime CEO Lowell McAdam on Aug. 1. Mr. McAdam will remain executive chairman until the end of the year and then become nonexecutive chairman.
- After report on ‘appalling’ conditions, Foxconn will investigate plant that makes Amazon devices
Though regular workers were better compensated in terms of wages and benefits, China Labor Watch says both groups were subjected to long hours and low wages, with workers putting in more than 100 overtime hours during peak season, even though the legal limit is 36 hours, and some working consecutively for 14 days. Workers on average earned wages between 2000 to 3000 RMB ($312.12 to $468.19), significantly less than Hengyang’s monthly average wage of 4,647 RMB ($725.22), but often had their overtime hours as punishment for taking leave or having unexcused absences.
The report also claimed that the factory had poor fire safety in its dormitories, lack of sufficiently protective equipment, verbally abusive managers and the “absence of a functioning labor union.”
https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/10/after-report-on-appalling-conditions-foxconn-will-investigate-plant-that-makes-amazon-devices/
Workers not paid legally by Amazon contractor in ChinaAmazon disclosed that its own auditors visited the Foxconn factory in March and found that it had hired an illegally high number of agency workers and was not paying them properly for working overtime.
Agency staff – known as dispatch workers in China – do not get sick pay or holiday pay and can be laid off without wages during lulls in production. China changed its labour laws in 2014 to limit their use to 10% of any workforce in an attempt to stop companies exploiting them to cut costs.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jun/09/amazon-contractor-foxconn-pay-workers-illegally
Photo by Michael Prewett on Unsplash
News You Can Use: 6/6/2018
- In America, corporations get to be people but workers don’t
More than 55% of U.S. workers are now subject to mandatory arbitration. This means that, if you have a problem with your employer, you are obligated to fight them alone, whether that problem is based on lost wages, discrimination, or even sexual harassment. And with this ruling, we can expect mandatory arbitration to increase–despite a vigorous push in Silicon Valley and Hollywood to curb the practice (along with nondisclosure agreements, which employers wield for similar ends).
Yesterday’s decision is of great concern to the #MeToo movement in particular, which at its core is about finding strength through shared oppression and driving change through shared action. Most workers don’t have the means to go to war with their employers alone–which makes Ingrid Avendaño, who earlier this week became the first former Uber employee to sue the company for discrimination after it ended forced arbitration amid intense public pressure, a laudable outlier. Lawsuits are expensive, and a simple cost-benefit analysis makes it difficult for many would-be plaintiffs to find a reason to fight in the first place.
https://www.fastcompany.com/40576069/in-america-corporations-get-to-be-people-but-workers-dont
- Why Do Some People Choose to Work Past 70?
A study conducted by Oregon State University showed that working past the age of 65 can help you live longer.
The OSU researchers found that working just one extra year (to 66) gave healthy adult respondents an 11 percent lower risk of death from all causes, including demographic, lifestyle and health issues. Not to stop there, the study also warned that retiring early might be a risk factor for early death.
Also:
As a general rule, most financial planners will recommend that you save enough to last 25 years after retirement. Meaning, if what you have left after spending your income (including Social Security and pension) is $30,000 per year, the rule suggests that you put away $750,000 for your retirement.
- How to stay calm under pressure
- How to get back on track when you’re having an unproductive day
It’s funny–it’s easy to be unproductive when you have too much to do. Feeling overwhelmed leads to prioritizing inefficiently (or not prioritizing at all), and trying to accomplish too much. When you feel stressed by your to-do list, you’re more likely to mismanage your time or even just give up. If everything is urgent and needs to get done today, you can feel paralyzed.
When this happens, stop. Take a step back and take another look at your to-do list. Identify what items absolutely have to be accomplished that day. Chances are, this whittles down your list significantly, making it feel a lot more manageable. By simply taking some of the pressure off yourself, you’re more able to focus and be productive.
https://www.fastcompany.com/40579081/how-to-get-back-on-track-when-youre-having-an-unproductive-day
- ‘You’re Stupid If You Don’t Get Scared’: When Amazon Goes From Partner to Rival
“On top of everyone’s mind is this black-widow behavior,” said Bill Richter, chief of Qumulo Inc., a Seattle startup that offers data storage and management on Amazon’s system. Amazon doesn’t compete with his company, but every year, he said, “we pray there’s not some big announcement” of an Amazon service that will.
There is growing concern in Washington and abroad about the dominance of giant tech firms such as Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook Inc. Amazon, too, has come under attack from right and left. President Donald Trump in March tweeted that it is “putting many thousands of retailers out of business!” Sen. Bernie Sanders in an April Facebook post raised concerns about Amazon’s “extraordinary power and influence.”
Photo by Jordan Donaldson | @jordi.d on Unsplash