Tag: Apple

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Supplier Report: 11/22/2019


Photo by Andrew Pons on Unsplash

The fight for the Pentagon’s JEDI contract might not be over as Amazon announced they would contest due to the final decision being biased against them. I know it is $10B, but everybody needs to move on.

Meanwhile JEDI winner Microsoft continues to push new technology in AI and Blockchain. Microsoft is testing medical AI technology to diagnose cervical cancer in India. Sometimes I feel that this medical review tech is more hype than reality, and my suspicions are higher when companies don’t test technology in the US first… but there is value if it truly works.

Finally, the State of New Jersey is hitting Uber with a $650M employee tax bill… good.

Acquisitions/Investments

  • Mirantis acquires Docker Enterprise

    With this deal, Mirantis is acquiring Docker Enterprise Technology Platform and all associated IP: Docker Enterprise Engine, Docker Trusted Registry, Docker Unified Control Plane and Docker CLI. It will also inherit all Docker Enterprise customers and contracts, as well as its strategic technology alliances and partner programs. Docker and Mirantis say they will both continue to work on the Docker platform’s open-source pieces.

    The companies did not disclose the price of the acquisition, but it’s surely nowhere near Docker’s valuation during any of its last funding rounds. Indeed, it’s no secret that Docker’s fortunes changed quite a bit over the years, from leading the container revolution to becoming somewhat of an afterthought after Google open-sourced Kubernetes and the rest of the industry coalesced around it.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/13/mirantis-acquires-docker-enterprise/

  • Yahoo-Line Merger Plan Raises Hopes for Japanese ‘Super App’

    SoftBank wants to gain greater control of Line in years to come, the person said.

    Another challenge is the two companies’ focus on the Japanese market, where the population is shrinking and growth prospects are limited. The market for the services they offer—such as texting, internet shopping and online financial services—is already dominated in most other countries by larger rivals such as Amazon.com Inc. and Facebook Inc.

    Still, analysts said the new entity, if designed well, could become Japan’s first “super app,” a gateway on smartphones for a broad range of everyday needs. That model has driven growth for China’s Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Tencent’s WeChat app for chatting with friends spawned a payment service, WeChat Pay, that along with Alibaba’s Alipay is now almost universally used for retail purchases in China.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/yahoo-line-merger-plan-raises-hopes-for-japanese-super-app-11573726726?ns=prod/accounts-wsj

  • OpenText buys data security firm Carbonite for $1.42B

    The deal marks a 78% premium on Carbonite’s share price on September 5, when it was first rumored the company was preparing to buy the backup and data recovery company. Carbonite said the board “strongly believes” the deal will return “substantial” cash value to shareholders, said Steve Munford, chairman of Carbonite’s board.

    In February, Carbonite bought endpoint security company Webroot for $618.5 million in an all-cash deal, as the company pushed to protect against emerging threats like ransomware. Only a year earlier, Carbonite bought Mozy for $145 million, a cloud backup service.

    Carbonite said at the time of its acquisition by OpenText the backup company had losses of $14 million on revenues of $125.6 million, an increase by 62% year-over-year.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/11/opentext-buys-carbonite/

Artificial Intelligence

  • Microsoft AI helps diagnose cervical cancer faster

    In some cases, AI-assisted cancer detection might be more than a convenience — it could be the key to getting a diagnosis in the first place. Microsoft and SRL Diagnostics have developed an AI tool that helps detect cervical cancer, freeing doctors in India and other countries where the sheer volume of patients could prove overwhelming. The team trained an AI to spot signs of the cancer by feeding it “thousands” of annotated cervical smear images to help it spot abnormalities (including pre-cancerous examples) that warrant a closer look. Doctors would only have to look at those slides that justify real concern.

    https://www.engadget.com/2019/11/10/microsoft-ai-diagnoses-cervical-cancer-faster/

  • Microsoft’s A.I. and research chief Harry Shum is leaving

    Microsoft said on Wednesday that Harry Shum, the executive vice president in charge of its artificial intelligence and research group, is leaving the company in early 2020. Kevin Scott, the company’s chief technology officer and formerly a LinkedIn executive, is taking on Shum’s responsibilities in addition to his own. It’s not clear what Shum will do next.

    Shum has been a figurehead in the more integrated approach to research that has taken hold at Microsoft during the tenure of CEO Satya Nadella, who replaced Steve Ballmer in 2014. His group has been one of the most prominent technology research institutions outside academia, alongside the likes of Google parent-company Alphabet and Facebook.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/13/microsoft-ai-and-research-chief-harry-shum-leaves.html

Cloud

  • AWS confirms reports it will challenge JEDI contract award to Microsoft

    In a statement, an Amazon spokesperson suggested that there was possible bias and issues in the selection process. “AWS is uniquely experienced and qualified to provide the critical technology the U.S. military needs, and remains committed to supporting the DoD’s modernization efforts. We also believe it’s critical for our country that the government and its elected leaders administer procurements objectively and in a manner that is free from political influence.

    “Numerous aspects of the JEDI evaluation process contained clear deficiencies, errors, and unmistakable bias — and it’s important that these matters be examined and rectified,” an Amazon spokesperson told TechCrunch.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/14/aws-confirms-reports-it-will-challenge-jedi-contract-award-to-microsoft/

  • Privacy uproar shows Google cloud business has a trust problem

    This sounds like the leak of Facebook data to Cambridge Analytica. But it also describes this week’s portrayal by the media of US healthcare provider Ascension’s decision to hand the records of 50 million of its patients to Google.

    In reality, this is far from the scandal it was painted. But the huge attention it has received points to both the risks and opportunities as large troves of valuable data are moved, wholesale, to the cloud. How this information is handled, and who reaps the value from it, are questions that will stir much wider concern.

    https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/privacy-uproar-shows-google-cloud-business-has-a-trust-problem-1.4084291
    Google’s ‘Project Nightingale’ Triggers Federal Inquiry

    The data on patients of St. Louis-based Ascension were until recently scattered across 40 data centers in more than a dozen states. Google and the Catholic nonprofit are moving that data into Google’s cloud-computing system—with potentially big changes on tap for doctors and patients.

    At issue for regulators and lawmakers who expressed concern is whether Google and Ascension are adequately protecting patient data in the initiative, which is code-named “Project Nightingale” and is aimed at crunching data to produce better health care, among other goals. Ascension, without notifying patients or doctors, has begun sharing with Google personally identifiable information on millions of patients, such as names and dates of birth; lab tests; doctor diagnoses; medication and hospitalization history; and some billing claims and other clinical records.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/behind-googles-project-nightingale-a-health-data-gold-mine-of-50-million-patients-11573571867

  • IBM and Oracle are so far behind in the cloud, they might stop trying to compete with

    Amazon altogether and go a different route, analyst says
    Rather than compete directly with those giants, lagging players like Oracle will focus on its applications and databases, while IBM will focus on hybrid cloud and its $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat, the report says.

    Dave Bartoletti, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester, tells Business Insider that they won’t get out of the game entirely: “It’s really a shifting of positioning,” he said. “I don’t think IBM and Oracle will get that much bigger. They will just refocus on what they do best.”

    https://www.businessinsider.com/ibm-oracle-amazon-forrester-report-2019-11

Security/Privacy

  • But Actually, How Scary Is Critical Infrastructure Hacking?

    Critical infrastructure hacking was brought to the public’s attention by former Secretary of State and CIA director Leon Panetta in a much-maligned 2012 speech where he warned of a coming “Cyber Pearl Harbor.”

    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xwpav/but-actually-how-scary-is-critical-infrastructure-hacking

  • Amazon-Owned Ring Shared Data About Tracking Kids On Halloween

    In a company blog and series of Instagram stories, posted Monday and Tuesday, the company showed that it collects, stores, and analyzes sensitive data about how, when, and where people use its doorbell cameras. Ring said that nationwide, its doorbell cameras were activated 15.8 million times on Halloween. The company makes several other types of surveillance cameras in addition to its doorbell camera.

    As it has on other occasions, like Super Bowl Sunday, Ring turned Halloween into a marketing opportunity. As reported by Mashable, Ring circulated videos of children on Halloween on Twitter. Ring also promoted Halloween-themed skins to decorate doorbell cameras on its company blogs and Instagram. However, in promoting itself as a family-friendly company, Ring showed that it collects user data on a granular level.

    https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolinehaskins1/ring-boasted-about-surveilling-trick-or-treaters-on

Infrastructure/Hardware

  • Apple’s Phil Schiller says kids with Chromebooks in classrooms are ‘not going to succeed’

    “Kids who are really into learning and want to learn will have better success. It’s not hard to understand why kids aren’t engaged in a classroom without applying technology in a way that inspires them. You need to have these cutting-edge learning tools to help kids really achieve their best results.

    Yet Chromebooks don’t do that. Chromebooks have gotten to the classroom because, frankly, they’re cheap testing tools for required testing. If all you want to do is test kids, well, maybe a cheap notebook will do that. But they’re not going to succeed.”

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/13/20963166/apple-phil-schiller-google-chromebook-classroom-not-going-to-succeed

Other

  • T-Mobile CEO John Legere isn’t taking the WeWork CEO job, sources say

    Legere, who became CEO of T-Mobile in 2012, has no plans to leave the company, said the people, who asked not to be named because the matter is confidential. CNBC and The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that Legere was a candidate to be WeWork’s next CEO.

    By taking himself out of the running, Legere is avoiding a potential conflict of interest. SoftBank is the controlling shareholder of Sprint, which is in the process of merging with T-Mobile, and is the majority owner of WeWork. Legere was never the front-runner to take the job, according to people familiar with the matter.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/15/john-legere-isnt-leaving-t-mobile-to-take-wework-ceo-job.html

  • Uber Hit With $650 Million Employment Tax Bill in New Jersey

    Uber Technologies Inc. owes New Jersey about $650 million in unemployment and disability insurance taxes because the rideshare company has been misclassifying drivers as independent contractors, the state’s labor department said.

    Uber and subsidiary Rasier LLC were assessed $523 million in past-due taxes over the last four years, the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development said in a pair of letters to the companies. The rideshare businesses also are on the hook for as much as $119 million in interest and penalties on the unpaid amounts, according to other internal department documents.

    The New Jersey labor department has been after Uber for unpaid employment taxes for at least four years, according to the documents, which Bloomberg Law obtained through an open public records request.

    https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/uber-hit-with-650-million-employment-tax-bill-in-new-jersey

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Supplier Report: 8/16/2019


Photo by Kong Jun on Unsplash

As the summer comes to a close, we are starting to see M&A activity ramp up. Several companies announced acquisitions over the last two weeks showing that there is money to burn for the right investments.

Meanwhile, Equifax seems to be burning money on settlements, but do they have enough cash to give every American $125? They do not. And critics are not happy.

Finally… Are Uber and Lyft ruing metropolitan traffic patterns? Maybe.

Acquisitions/Investments

  • Broadcom Makes $10.7 Billion Deal to Buy Symantec’s Corporate-Focused Security Business

    The part of Symantec, best known for its antivirus software, that Broadcom is buying focuses on sales to companies. That part contributes about half of Symantec’s $5 billion in annual revenue. The consumer segment accounts for the rest of the 37-year-old company’s revenue.

    Broadcom Chief Executive Hock Tan has been focused on diversifying beyond the company’s core chip business and pushing into the lucrative software arena. Last year, he struck a roughly $19 billion deal to buy software firm CA Technologies, formerly Computer Associates.

    The Symantec business will add an expected $2 billion to Broadcom’s annual revenue going forward, Broadcom said, and would generate savings of more than $1 billion by eliminating cost overlaps in the year after the deal closed.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/broadcom-makes-10-7-billion-deal-to-buy-symantecs-corporate-focused-security-business-11565298059

  • Salesforce to Buy Workforce Management Software Firm

    Salesforce Inc. said Wednesday it struck a $1.35 billion deal to buy ClickSoftware Technologies Ltd., as the company aims to bolster the services it offers to customers.

    ClickSoftware is used by companies to schedule field service work and develops workplace management software. Private-equity firm Francisco Partners Management L.P. bought the company in 2015 for $438 million.

    “Our acquisition of ClickSoftware will not only accelerate the growth of Service Cloud, but drive further innovation with Field Service Lightning to better meet the needs of our customers,” Bill Patterson, general manager of the Salesforce Service Cloud unit, said in a statement.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/salesforce-to-buy-workforce-management-software-firm-11565215962

  • Amazon acquires flash-based cloud storage startup E8 Storage

    E8 Storage’s particular focus was on building storage hardware that employs flash-based memory to deliver faster performance than competing offerings, according to its own claims. How exactly AWS intends to use the company’s talent or assets isn’t yet known, but it clearly lines up with their primary business.

    AWS acquisitions this year include TSO Logic, a Vancouver-based startup that optimizes data center workload operating efficiency, and Israel-based CloudEndure, which provides data recovery services in the event of a disaster.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/31/amazon-acquires-flash-based-cloud-storage-startup-e8-storage/

  • Cisco scoops up Voicea to infuse more AI into its collaboration products

    Voicea, incorporated as Rizio Inc., has raised $20 million in funding since hitting the scene three years ago. Cisco’s venture capital arm contributed to the startup’s Series A round in 2017. Salesforce.com Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s GV fund and Battery Ventures were among the other high-profile investors that backed Voicea.

    The Mountain View, California-based startup has developed an artificial intelligence called Eva that can join conference calls to take notes. The assistant transcribes the conversation and enables participants to organize key highlights into an easily browsable list for future reference. Users can instruct Eva to mark an item as important with their voice, which removes the need to scribble notes while a call is ongoing.

    Cisco will bake Voicea’s technology into its Webex family of cloud-based collaboration services. The flagship product of the lineup is the Webex Meetings video conferencing tool, which competes with applications such as Microsoft Corp.’s Skype for Business. Cisco also offers versions of the tool for team collaboration, customer support and webinars along with a line of conference call equipment.

    https://siliconangle.com/2019/08/06/cisco-scoops-voicea-infuse-ai-collaboration-products/

  • Microsoft acquires data privacy and governance service BlueTalon

    Microsoft today announced that it has acquired BlueTalon, a data privacy and governance service that helps enterprises set policies for how their employees can access their data. The service then enforces those policies across most popular data environments and provides tools for auditing policies and access, too.

    Neither Microsoft nor BlueTalon disclosed the financial details of the transaction. Ahead of today’s acquisition, BlueTalon had raised about $27.4 million, according to Crunchbase. Investors include Bloomberg Beta, Maverick Ventures, Signia Venture Partners and Stanford’s StartX fund.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/29/microsoft-acquires-data-privacy-and-governance-service-bluetalon/

  • Salesforce closes $15.7B Tableau deal

    In an amazingly quick turnaround for a deal of this scope, Salesforce announced today that it has closed the $15.7 billion Tableau deal announced in June. The deal is by far the biggest acquisition in Salesforce history, a company known for being highly acquisitive.

    A deal of this size usually faces a high level of regulatory scrutiny and can take six months or longer to close, but this one breezed through the process and closed in less than two months.

    With Tableau and MuleSoft (a company it bought last year for $6.5 billion) in the fold, Salesforce has a much broader view of the enterprise than it could as a pure cloud company. It has access to data wherever it lives, whether on premises or in the cloud, and with Tableau, it enables customers to bring that data to life by visualizing it.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/01/salesforce-closes-15-7b-tableau-deal/

Cloud

  • JEDI Cloud-Computing Contract Award to Be Delayed Weeks

    Mr. Esper said Aug. 1 he would be reviewing the program known as the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI. He didn’t give a timeline for a review at the time. The Pentagon had previously signaled it could award the potentially $10 billion contract by the end of August, with Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. as finalists.

    Mr. Deasy said it would take “a number of weeks” to brief Mr. Esper and that the contract isn’t likely to be awarded in August. He said he is planning a number of sessions to explain to Mr. Esper the need for a Pentagon-wide cloud-computing capability, the benefits it would have on the battlefield, and how officials have designed the contract.

    He stressed the program was for a minimum of $1 million over 2 years, and would only reach its $10 billion maximum value over a decade if the Pentagon exercises several options.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/jedi-cloud-computing-contract-award-to-be-delayed-weeks-11565361020

Security/Privacy

  • Capital One breach also hit other major companies, say researchers

    The data breach at Capital One may be the “tip of the iceberg” and may affect other major companies, according to security researchers.

    Israeli security firm CyberInt said Vodafone, Ford, Michigan State University and the Ohio Department of Transportation may have also fallen victim to the same data breach that saw more than 106 million credit applications and files copied from a cloud server run by Capital One by an alleged hacker, Paige Thompson, a Seattle resident, who was taken into FBI custody earlier this week.

    It follows earlier reports from Forbes and security reporter Brian Krebs indicating that Capital One may not have been the only company affected, pointing to “one of the world’s biggest telecom providers, an Ohio government body, and a major U.S. university,” according to Slack messages sent by the alleged hacker.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/31/capital-one-breach-vodafone-ford-researchers/

  • The Equifax Settlement Is a Cruel Joke

    As part of the $575 million settlement, up to $425 million was set aside to compensate those who could clearly prove they were victims of identity theft as a result of the breach.

    For those unable to prove clear financial harm (most of us), the settlement offered users either free credit reporting for ten years, or a $125 one time cash payout. But because the FTC only set aside $31 million to pay for these payouts, it quickly ran out of cash and is now falsely telling consumers the free credit reporting is a “much better value.”

    But because free credit reporting is routinely doled out as compensation for a steady parade of privacy breaches, it’s effectively worthless to most consumers. Many of these services also include terms of service restrictions that erode your legal rights.

    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d3agv7/the-equifax-settlement-is-a-cruel-joke

Infrastructure/Hardware

  • Cisco to Pay $8.6 Million to Settle Government Claims of Flawed Tech

    Cisco will pay civil damages in connection with software that it sold to various government agencies, including Homeland Security, the Secret Service, the Army, the Navy, the Marines, the Air Force and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, according to a government complaint unsealed on Wednesday.

    The government said the video surveillance software it bought from Cisco was “of no value” because it did not “meet its primary purpose: enhancing the security of the agencies that purchase it.” In many cases, the Cisco software actually reduced the protection provided by other security systems, the complaint said.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/31/technology/cisco-tech-flaw-sales.html

  • Apple Reports Declining Profits and Stagnant Growth, Again

    On Tuesday, the Silicon Valley behemoth said that its net income had fallen 13 percent and that its revenue rose 1 percent in the latest quarter, with iPhone sales continuing to decline and gains in the company’s services and wearables business failing to make up the difference.

    The results showed persistent signs of weakness for one of the world’s financial standouts. Apple built its enormous business on the iPhone, but sales of the device have slipped for three straight quarters in a saturated market for smartphones.

    Yet the results also suggested that the company could be starting to halt declines in those sales and other key areas, including revenue from the Chinese market. Over the previous two quarters, Apple’s profits and revenue had fallen over all.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/technology/apple-earnings-iphone.html
    Shameless Plug: I did an entire podcast about Apple’s shrinking consumer base.

Other

  • Uber and Lyft finally admit they’re making traffic congestion worse in cities

    These figures suggest that Uber and Lyft are hitting some cities harder than previously thought. An independent study commissioned by the San Francisco County Transportation Authority looked at 2017 traffic patterns in the county and concluded that TNCs generated about 6.5 percent of the total VMT on weekdays, and 10 percent on weekends. (TNC, which stands for transportation network company, is an industry term used to describe ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft.)

    The findings from Fehr & Peers show totals “nearly twice that previous estimate,” said Gregory Erhardt, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Kentucky who has researched Uber and Lyft’s effects on public transit ridership. “This difference may be due to the continued increase in TNC use over the intervening two years.”

    But some cities aren’t as hard hit as others. Uber and Lyft represent lower percentages of total VMTs in Chicago, LA, and Seattle. And New York City, the largest market for both companies in the US, was left out of the analysis altogether, likely because of the city’s low rate of car ownership and extensive public transportation network.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/6/20756945/uber-lyft-tnc-vmt-traffic-congestion-study-fehr-peers

  • Elizabeth Warren Promises to Kill State Laws That Ban Locally-Owned ISPs

    Warren’s proposal, outlined in a Medium post as part of a broader plan for rural America, includes doling out $85 billion to help fund broadband deployment to underserved areas. FCC data suggests that 39 percent of rural Americans still lack access to broadband.

    But the plan also does something notable: it takes aim at the growing roster of protectionist state laws telecom lobbyists have used to crush competition across the country.

    “Many small towns and rural areas have turned to municipal networks to provide broadband access in places that the private market has failed to serve—but today, as many as 26 states have passed laws hindering or banning municipalities from building their own broadband infrastructure to protect the interests of giant telecom companies,” Warren said.

    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mbmjja/elizabeth-warren-promises-to-kill-state-laws-that-ban-locally-owned-isps

Posted on

Supplier Report: 8/2/2019


Photo by Roberto Nickson on Unsplash

Microsoft continues to make strides in the cloud space inching closer to Amazon’s crown (but not that close…yet). The company is also betting on massive AI investments to continue their success in the future.

Meanwhile, T-Mobile and Sprint are finally allowed to merge and Dish will officially become a telecom company.

Acquisitions/Investments

  • T-Mobile and Sprint get DOJ approval for $26 billion merger deal

    The U.S. Department of Justice this morning gave the green light to T-Mobile US and Sprint for their proposed $26 billion merger. The deal, which would combine the nation’s third and fourth largest carriers (by subscriber number) has been green lit on the condition that Sprint sell its prepaid assets (including Boost Mobile) to Dish Network.

    As part of the deal, some nine million prepaid subscribers will move over to Dish, which will also have access to T-Mobile/Sprint’s network for a period of seven years.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/26/t-mobile-and-sprint-get-doj-approval-for-26-billion-merger-deal/

    Experts Say the DOJ Justification for T-Mobile/Sprint Merger Approval Is a Joke

    “Today’s settlement will provide Dish with the assets and transitional services required to become a facilities-based mobile network operator that can provide a full range of mobile wireless services nationwide,” DOJ Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim said of the deal.

    But experts consulted by Motherboard say the proposal isn’t likely to work, and the end result of the merger will still very likely be higher prices and worse service for all.

    For one thing, Dish has been promising to build a wireless network for the better part of the last decade with little to show for it. The company has routinely been accused of “spectrum squatting,” or buying spectrum it doesn’t use in a bid to turn around and sell it later when it’s more valuable. Even T-Mobile made this complaint when Dish initially criticized the merger.

    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wjvw55/t-mobile-sprint-merger-is-a-joke

Artificial Intelligence

  • Microsoft to Invest $1 Billion in Artificial-Intelligence Startup

    “This is a big investment for Microsoft, even at their size,” said Stifel analyst Brad Reback. “They’ll do scores of acquisitions annually but most of them tend to be smaller technology tuck-ins.”

    OpenAI was launched in 2015 as a nonprofit with a goal of leading efforts to develop artificial general intelligence. It competes with Alphabet Inc. ’s DeepMind Technologies and others. OpenAI is led by CEO Sam Altman, a former president of startup accelerator Y Combinator.

    The Microsoft investment signals a vote of confidence in OpenAI’s recent transformation into a private company from a nonprofit. In March, OpenAI revamped its legal structure to raise more money and gain scale, which enabled it to accept the investment from Microsoft.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/microsoft-to-invest-1-billion-in-artificial-intelligence-startup-11563813648

Cloud

  • Google Cloud’s run rate is now over $8B

    Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who recently installed former Oracle exec Thomas Kurian as the new head of Google Cloud, announced that this business unit now has an $8 billion annual revenue run rate. That’s up from the $4 billion the company reported in early 2018.

    While Google often felt like an also-ran in the cloud wars, it’s clearly starting to make up some ground. “Other cloud providers would have you believe that no one is using Google, which is not true,” Kurian told me when I talked to him earlier this year. Now he can put some numbers behind this claim.

    To put that into perspective, AWS’s run rate topped $30 billion last quarter while Microsoft Azure is somewhere around $11 billion, though concrete numbers are hard to come by.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/25/google-clouds-run-rate-is-now-over-8b/

  • The cloud computing market is closing in on a $100 billion milestone, but half of it is going to either Amazon or Microsoft, according to an analyst report

    The cloud market, which covers web-based services for infrastructure, platform and hosted private clouds, totaled about $23 billion in the second quarter, according to Synergy Research Group. That’s up 39% from the year-ago period and $1.6 billion from the previous quarter.

    Amazon owned 33% of that market, bigger than the combined share of its four closest rivals: Microsoft, which had 16%, Google, 8%, Alibaba and Tencent. The report also mentioned other key players in the cloud market — IBM, Salesforce, Oracle and Rackspace — which posted lower growth rates and “are more niche-oriented.”

    https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-microsoft-cloud-gap-narrowing-2019-7

  • Microsoft, AT&T sign cloud deal worth more than $2 billion

    Under the deal, Microsoft and AT&T will also work together on so-called edge computing, which will see Microsoft technology deployed alongside AT&T’s coming 5G network for applications that need extremely small delays in passing data back and forth, such as air traffic control systems for drones. The multi-year deal is worth more than $2 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter.

    The agreement is a major win for Microsoft, which will become AT&T’s “preferred” cloud vendor and is fighting to gain market share from Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services, the biggest provider of public cloud services. Cloud service customers run their software applications in data centers managed by the cloud provider.

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-at-t-cloud/microsoft-att-sign-cloud-deal-worth-more-than-2-billion-idUSKCN1UC1KK?il=0
    IBM Lands AT&T as Client in Cloud Deal

    The partnership builds on IBM’s $34 billion acquisition of open-source software firm Red Hat, which closed last week. Buying Red Hat strengthened IBM’s standing in the hybrid cloud market. Companies use the hybrid cloud to manage software and other systems across different cloud services and their own data centers.

    IBM said that Red Hat’s open-source software will give AT&T Business the flexibility to move data and applications among various clouds and data centers. AT&T Business until now has worked with multiple cloud vendors.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/ibm-lands-at-t-as-client-in-cloud-deal-11563317480

Security/Privacy

  • An Equifax hack settlement promises a $125 payout. The truth is more complicated.

    First, if your information (most importantly, your social security number) was part of the hack, then you should assume it’s out there forever. Even if someone hasn’t stolen your identity yet, it could still happen.

    Second, even if you file for reimbursement, there’s a good chance you won’t actually get the full $125 that Equifax and the FTC are talking about. Things are worded carefully in the agreement, but the bottom line is there’s a limited amount of money in the payout pool, and it won’t cover $125 checks for 147 million people.

    Given all that, the biggest loophole you should be aware of is that if you do nothing, you will automatically waive your right to take legal action against Equifax in the future.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/07/27/equifax-settlement-guide-how-get-money-what-you-need-know/?utm_term=.ae82df97b9e0

Infrastructure/Hardware

  • Apple’s and Intel’s No-Brainer Deal

    The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that the two are in “advanced talks.” A deal would purportedly involve both the intellectual property and staff related to Intel’s effort to design and build the crucial smartphone component that ultimately landed only Apple as a customer. The reported purchase price under discussion is about $1 billion.

    That is less than a week’s worth of free cash flow for Apple. It also is about what Intel has been losing annually on modems. Despite landing the sizable iPhone business, Intel’s modem-chip operation never achieved the necessary scale to compete profitably with market leader Qualcomm . QCOM -0.17% Meanwhile, Apple was effectively locked into the Intel modem during its bruising legal tussle with Qualcomm. The latter’s advancements in 5G technology ultimately spurred a settlement of that dispute, but it is an uneasy peace. Intel now has a modem operation with no customer following this year’s iPhone model, and Apple is back to depending on a supplier with whom it now has a rather tortured history.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/apples-and-intels-no-brainer-deal-11563900798

  • Sony’s wearable AC will arrive too late to save you from this year’s heatwave

    Sony has announced the Reon Pocket, a small cooling device that you can wear like a portable air conditioner. It’s currently live on Sony’s crowdfunding website, where prices start at ¥12,760 (about $117). SlashGear notes that as well as cooling you during hot days, the device, which slots into the back pocket of a specially designed T-shirt, can also warm you up during the winter.

    https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/7/27/8931701/sony-reon-pocket-portable-wearable-air-conditioner-heater-heatwave-t-shirt

    I need this thing now. Right Now.

Other

  • Tesla’s longtime CTO is stepping down

    Longtime Tesla executive JB Straubel is leaving his post as chief technology officer after some 15 years, CEO Elon Musk announced Wednesday evening. Straubel will transition to a “senior advisor” role, according to Musk, and is not fully leaving the company. The news comes as Tesla announced a $408 million loss for the second quarter of 2019.

    “I’m not disappearing, and I just wanted to make sure that people understand that this was not some, you know, lack of confidence in the company, or the team, or anything like that,” Straubel said on the call.

    Straubel is the second C-suite executive to announce a change in his role on one of Tesla’s earnings calls in the last six months. Longtime chief financial officer Deepak Ahuja announced he was retiring on a call in January. Tesla also has a well-documented revolving door when it comes to lower-level executives.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/24/20726728/tesla-jb-straubel-cto-is-stepping-down

Posted on

Supplier Report: 5/17/2019

There is growing public pressure on Facebook to make some kind of change. Former employees and government officials want to break up the company calling it a monopoly, but are Facebook’s services essential?

Seeing this drama unfold, Google is quickly pivoting to privacy-based position. In recent weeks the company is allowing users to limit tracking and delete information Google has stored about usage.  Very smart move… but is it enough?

Meanwhile Oracle just can’t give up on Project Jedi.

Acquisitions

  • Apple buys companies at the same rate you buy groceries

    This weekend, CEO Tim Cook told CNBC that Apple purchases a new company every two to three weeks on average, and has bought between 20 and 25 companies in the last six months alone.

    That’s roughly as often as I bought groceries during some… oh, let’s just call them “fresh vegetable adjacent” periods of my life.

    You know how human beings never fail to be surprised when they get to the cash register and see how much of their paycheck is about to turn into food? I wonder if Apple ever feels that way. I’d guess not, considering how the company’s reportedly sitting on $225.4 billion dollars of cash on hand alone — enough to settle a historic array of lawsuits with Qualcomm 50 times over, if push came to shove.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/6/18531570/apple-company-purchases-startups-tim-cook-buy-rate

  • Marvell to Acquire Aquantia, Eying Automotive Networking Market

    Marvell on Monday announced that it had reached an agreement to buy the networking specialist firm Aquantia for $452 million. The acquisition will allow Marvell to significantly augment their current networking capabilities, with the company intending to use Aquantia’s technology in future PC, enterprise, and especially in-vehicle applications.

    Under the terms of the deal, Marvell will pay Aquantia shareholders $13.25 per share in cash, bringing the total value of the deal to $452 million. The transaction has already been approved by board of directors of both companies, and subject to regulatory approval, is expected to close by the end of calendar year 2019.

    https://www.anandtech.com/show/14300/marvell-to-acquire-aquantia-eying-automotive-networking-market

Artificial Intelligence

  • The Morning After: All the important stuff from Google I/O

    An AI-powered assistant that responds to voice commands faster than you can type or swipe, even offline? That’s what Google promised at I/O, with demos showing off how its next-generation assistant could operate across and through several apps, using voice control almost exclusively to get the information users need when they need it. Plus, it learns what you like and can even make restaurant or menu suggestions based on those preferences. Expect to see these features roll out on Pixel phones first later this year.

    https://www.engadget.com/2019/05/08/the-morning-after-google-io-highlights/

Cloud

  • Oracle Alleges AWS Recruited DoD Officials To Influence JEDI Cloud Award

    After Oracle first raised the issue, the DoD Inspector General, assisted by the FBI’s Public Corruption Squad, reopened a prior investigation and again concluded those potential improprieties didn’t impact the integrity of the process. A previous Government Accountability Office investigation also found no flaw warranting a change in how the military was selecting a cloud vendor.

    But Oracle argued Tuesday the military’s contracting officer was wrong to take Ubhi’s claims at face value during the investigation, noting he actively sought to return to AWS, where he previously worked, during his short stint at DoD, where for a time he worked as a JEDI project manager.

    https://www.crn.com/news/cloud/oracle-alleges-aws-recruited-dod-officials-to-influence-jedi-cloud-award

  • SAP embraces cloud customization – with interesting partners

    SAP is launching SAP Embrace, a new initiative to enable users of the SAP S/4 HANA ERP system to move it to the cloud, with platform, software, services and infrastructure customized to their specific industry needs. Interestingly, SAP is collaborating with cloud competitors Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud. SAP Embrace customers will be able to select one of those three cloud services providers as a hyperscaler, and also leverage SAP’s network of global strategic service partners.

    https://www.chainstoreage.com/technology/sap-embraces-cloud-customization-with-interesting-partners/

Security/Privacy

  • Google Says It Has Found Religion on Privacy

    Google plans to permit users to navigate its maps, watch videos on YouTube and search for information in “incognito mode,” limiting the amount of information shared with the company. It will also allow users to delete web and app activity history automatically after three months or 18 months.

    Google added incognito mode to its Chrome browser a decade ago.

    The company also said it would make it easier for users to find and delete information they have shared with the company, including location data in maps. For its Android operating system, Google said a new update would simplify how to limit the sharing of location data with app providers.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/07/technology/google-privacy-tools.html

Software/SaaS

  • Symantec CEO Abruptly Resigns Amid Financial Turmoil

    Symantec CEO Greg Clark abruptly resigned yesterday immediately before the embattled security company reported its fourth-quarter 2019 earnings, which included weak enterprise sales and disappointing forecasts for the first quarter and full 2020 fiscal year.

    The company appointed Richard Hill, current Symantec director and former chairman and CEO of Novellus Systems, as interim president and CEO, effective immediately, and said it will begin a search to find a permanent CEO.

    https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/symantec-ceo-abruptly-resigns-amid-financial-turmoil/2019/05/

  • IBM sells $28.6b of bonds to help fund Red Hat buy

    The Red Hat purchase will push the combined company’s borrowings above $US60 billion with debt that’s more than three times a key measure of earnings, said Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Robert Schiffman and Mike Campellone. Though IBM won’t buy back shares in the next two years, it still risks a potential downgrade to the BBB range, the tier of corporate debt that’s just above junk, they wrote.

    IBM took out a $US20 billion bridge loan to fund the Red Hat deal and will use some of its cash pile, the company said in October when the transaction was announced. S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings cut IBM one level to A at the time, the sixth-highest investment-grade rating, while it remains on review for downgrade at Moody’s Investors Service.

    https://www.afr.com/markets/debt-markets/ibm-sells-28-6b-of-bonds-to-help-fund-red-hat-buy-20190509-p51li8

Infrastructure/Hardware

  • Microsoft open-sources its quantum computing development tools

    This move, the company says, is meant to make “quantum computing and algorithm development easier and more transparent for developers.” In addition, it will make it easier for academic institutions to use these tools, and developers, of course, will be able to contribute their own code and ideas.

    Unsurprisingly, the code will live on Microsoft’s GitHub page. Previously, the team had already open-sourced a number of tools and examples, as well as a library of quantum chemistry samples, but this is the first time the team is open-sourcing core parts of the platform.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/06/microsoft-open-sources-its-quantum-computing-development-tools/

  • Apple’s would-be sapphire glass supplier charged with fraud

    Apple loaned $578 million to a company called GT Advanced Technologies, which was supposed to build highly scratch-resistant screen covers from synthetic sapphire crystals. Instead, it produced flawed “boules” of sapphire that couldn’t be cut into displays and went bankrupt months after it started. Now, the SEC has announced that it’s charging the company and its ex-CEO with fraud for allegedly withholding key information from stockholders.

    https://www.engadget.com/2019/05/06/apple-sapphire-glass-supplier-charged-with-fraud/

Other

  • Facebook co-founder, Chris Hughes, calls for Facebook to be broken up

    The tl;dr of Hughes’ argument against Facebook/Zuckerberg being allowed to continue its/his reign of the internet knits together different strands of the techlash zeitgeist, linking Zuckerberg’s absolute influence over Facebook, and therefore over the unprecedented billions of people he can reach and behaviourally reprogram via content-sorting algorithms, to the crushing of innovation and startup competition; the crushing of consumer attention, choice and privacy, all hostage to relentless growth targets and an eyeball-demanding ad business model; the crushing control of speech that Zuckerberg — as Facebook’s absolute monarch — personally commands, with Hughes worrying it’s a power too potent for any one human to wield.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/09/facebook-co-founder-chris-hughes-calls-for-facebook-to-be-broken-up/

    Facebook is not a monopoly, and breaking it up would defy logic and set a bad precedent

    Hughes and others have cited historical precedents such as the government’s breakup of Standard Oil and AT&T as a justification for stricter antitrust regulation against tech giants. But these companies not only had clear monopolies with pricing power that hurt consumers, they also offered products that were vital to the economy.

    Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp are only three of many ways people can communicate digitally, and while many people spend hours every week using them, they are replaceable and inessential — and, in fact, getting away from Facebook and Instagram might make people happier. Even Hughes acknowledges, when he finds himself scrolling through Instagram at idle hours, “The choice is mine, but it doesn’t feel like a choice.”

    https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/09/facebook-should-not-be-broken-up-commentary.html

  • Elon Musk is going to trial for calling a cave diver a pedophile on Twitter

    Defamation law doesn’t apply to opinions or derogatory hyperbole, and Judge Wilson concluded that Musk’s case would be stronger if he’d simply tweeted an insult. But Musk “did not call [Unsworth] a ‘pedo guy’ and leave it there,” writes Wilson. “Rather, he made follow-up statements indicating that he believed his statements to be true.” That included the emails to BuzzFeed, where Musk “purported to convey actual facts and even suggested that the BuzzFeed reporter call people in Thailand to confirm his narrative.”

    The decision doesn’t mean Musk is guilty, but it means Unsworth’s case is strong enough to deserve a trial. A pre-trial conference will take place on October 7th. This won’t be the first time Musk has gone to court for some bad tweets. He recently settled a separate lawsuit with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, which accused him of making misleading financial statements on Twitter.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/10/18564625/elon-musk-vernon-unsworth-pedo-guy-tweets-defamation-lawsuit-trial-date-set

Photo by Jason Dent on Unsplash