Supplier Report: 1/19/2018

Amazon released a finalist list of 20 cities that will compete to host Amazon’s HQ2.  Philadelphia, Newark, and Boston are all in the running.  As Amazon looks to grow in a new city, they have grown all over the internet, commanding 62% of the entire cloud market.

Google is trying to compete and differentiate from AWS by adding more capacity overseas via 3 massive underwater cables. They are also trying get AI to the masses with tools that require little to no experience programming AI.  That solution is… a work in progress.  

Google is also making friends with a potential fix for Meltdown and Spectre that won’t impact CPU performance.

Meanwhile, IBM is celebrating breaking the 22-quarter revenue losing streak! Revenue is up, but their stock was down 4%.

Acquisitions

  • What the JAGGAER/BravoSolution deal means for procurement

    The focus of the acquisition, instead, seems to be to tap into the widely different client bases for both providers, and the potential to expand into a larger range of vertical markets. BravoSolution has a large body of public sector customers, and identified construction, utilities and oil as target areas, while JAGGAER has a strong presence among pharmaceutical and discrete manufacturing companies.

    The drive to provide both direct, and indirect, procurement for a wider range of verticals seems to be the principal vision underpinning the move.

    https://www.procurementleaders.com/blog/guest/what-the-jaggaerbravosolution-deal-means-for-procurement–681579

Artificial Intelligence

  • Google’s new cloud service lets you train your own AI tools, no coding knowledge required

    You might have heard of Google’s AutoML initiative before now. It was announced at the company’s I/O conference last year, and is focused on creating machine learning software that can design machine learning software, a hot area of research in the AI community. (The basic premise is simple: you make different algorithms compete with one another, pick the winners, and then make them compete. Rinse and repeat.) Cloud AutoML isn’t working with tools as sophisticated as this, but it does aim to solve the same underlying problem of making AI less painful to code.

    Cloud AutoML does this by offering users a simple graphical interface for training their own machine learning model. So far, the service is limited to image recognition, letting users drag and drop a set of pictures, and then watching as the software starts picking out recurrent elements or items. Urban Outfitters, for example, is testing how Cloud AutoML might be used to identify items of clothing in their catalog, so users can filter by certain characteristics.

    https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/17/16901126/google-cloud-ai-services-automl

Cloud

  • Another Amazon Win: Two-Thirds of the Cloud

    Research at KeyBanc reported that Amazon Web Services had 62% of the cloud market last year, followed by Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) at 20%. Its cloud business is called Azure. KeyBanc said that AWS lost a small amount of share last year, but its lead is still insurmountable for the foreseeable future.

    The news could hardly be better for Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his company’s shareholders. Amazon’s North American and International e-commerce divisions barely make money in many quarters. AWS has impressive margins. For Amazon as a whole to post strong earnings, AWS has to continue to grow and keep big margins.

    http://247wallst.com/technology-3/2018/01/13/another-amazon-win-two-thirds-of-the-cloud/

  • Google is building three new underwater cables to compete with Microsoft and Amazon in the cloud

    In an effort to expand its cloud business and compete more effectively with rival Microsoft and Amazon, Google will build three new underwater fiber optic cables from the Pacific Ocean to the North Sea over the course of the next two years, according to The Wall Street Journal. These cables will extend Google’s private network into regions where its competitors have yet to stake their own claim, and should be finished before the end of 2019.

    Each of the sub-sea cables have been given their own name: Curie is a private cable connecting Chile to Los Angeles; Havfrue is a consortium cable connecting the United States to Denmark and Ireland; and the Hong Kong-Guam cable system (HK-G) is another consortium cable that will link major underwater communication hubs in Asia.

    http://bgr.com/2018/01/16/google-underwater-cables-cloud-business-expansion/

  • Comcast Cable Partners with Amazon Web Services for Cloud Computing

    Comcast Cable has announced today that they will be partnering with Amazon Web Services for cloud computing infrastructure.

    This partnership will help Comcast Cable utilize the server technology with AWS.

    Comcast Cable and NBCUniversal are currently connected with AWS to provide them with new and engaging revenue-generating products within the competitive entertainment industry.

    https://crescentvale.com/2018/01/comcast-cable-partners-amazon-web-services-cloud-computing/

  • No One is Sure Why Amazon Needs a HIPAA Compliance Officer

    The HIPAA Compliance Officer will be asked to create “a HIPAA security and compliance program to ensure that technology and business processes meet our HIPAA Business Associate Agreement (BAA) requirements.” The listing doesn’t specify what projects it is planning, or what data it will be handling, that will fall under HIPAA or HITECH regulation.

    Amazon could be exploring legitimate medical applications for its Alexa-powered talking cylinders, like the Echo, and their underlying technology, according to speculation. “Experience with FDA and the 510K process” is listed as a preferred qualification—510(k) applies to premarket certification of medical devices.

    Alexa does have some health-related “skills,” like a basic medical app that delivers Mayo Clinic guidance on basic conditions like fevers or burns. Those are a far cry, however, from the sort of application that would handle protected health information and require HIPAA oversight.

    http://www.hcanews.com/news/no-one-is-sure-why-amazon-needs-a-hipaa-compliance-officer
    Foolish headline. This position could be for Alexa, or it could be as simple as ensuring their web services are better positioned for insurance and medical entities.

Datacenter

  • Apple will boost its spending on data centers by $10 billion over the next 5 years

    Apple is increasing the amount it plans to spend on data centers by $10 billion over the next five years, the company said in its announcement on Wednesday about contributing $350 billion to the U.S. economy.

    The buildout will help Apple support its growing web services, like the App Store and Apple Music. Services is Apple’s fastest growing business, outpacing revenue growth in key products like iPhones and iPads. Apple has said it aims to double its services revenue from $24 billion in its 2016 fiscal year to $48 billion by 2020.

    Perhaps more important, the new spending could make room for Apple to spend less money on other companies’ cloud services. Apple has relied on Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure to meet its computing needs, despite that it competes with those companies in certain areas.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/17/apple-to-boost-data-center-capex-by-10-billion.html

Software/SaaS

  • City of Barcelona will replace Microsoft’s Windows with Linux

    The users of the City of Barcelona will have to use alternatives to Microsoft products like Open-Xchange instead of Microsoft Exchange Server, LibreOffice or OpenOffice instead of Microsoft Office, etc. which is a bummer. Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer would also be replaced by other alternative browsers like Mozilla Firefox, etc.

    As reported by the newspaper, the City Council wants to avoid paying or spending money on services with licensing cost. That’s where open source software come where anyone can modify the source provided and there is no need to pay anything for the license. The City Council is also committed to investing 70% of the budget in software for open source software.

    https://www.windowslatest.com/2018/01/13/city-barcelona-will-replace-microsofts-windows-linux/

  • Snap Inc. lays off at least two dozen amid slowed user growth and engagement

    Snap Inc. has laid off at least two dozen people across several divisions within the company, according to the Information, which first reported the news.

    Snap has since confirmed these layoffs, which largely affect those on the content teams in the New York and London offices. Over half of the two dozen employees laid off today were part of the content team.

    Snap tells TechCrunch that what’s left of the content division will now move to the company’s Venice, California location and that it will continue to hire on the content team. According to Snap, this is just part of finding the right people for the job.

    These layoffs may also not have been unexpected as they are part of a reorganization effort to cut costs due to the lackluster growth at the six-year old company.

    https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/18/snap-inc-lays-off-at-least-two-dozen-amid-slowed-user-growth-and-engagement/?ncid=rss

Security

  • Google claims to have a Spectre fix that doesn’t slow down PCs

    According to Google, its patch, code-named Retpoline and which is software-implemented, has no or little impact on performance. “Retpoline sequences are a software construct which allow indirect branches to be isolated from speculative execution. This may be applied to protect sensitive binaries (such as operating system or hypervisor implementations) from branch target injection attacks against their indirect branches,” explained Retpoline creator Paul Turner.

    “This confirmed our internal assessment that in real-world use, the performance-optimized updates Google deployed do not have a material effect on workloads,” Google VP Ben Treynor Sloss wrote. “We believe that Retpoline-based protection is the best-performing solution for Variant 2 on current hardware. Retpoline fully protects against Variant 2 without impacting customer performance on all our platforms. In sharing our research publicly, we hope that this can be universally deployed to improve the cloud experience industry-wide.”

    http://bgr.com/2018/01/12/google-spectre-patch-retpoline-explainer-analysis/

Other

  • Amazon Narrows Choices for ‘HQ2’ to 20

    Atlanta
    Austin, Texas
    Boston
    Chicago
    Columbus, Ohio
    Dallas
    Denver
    Indianapolis
    Los Angeles
    Miami
    Montgomery County, Md.
    Nashville
    Newark, N.J.
    New York City
    Northern Virginia
    Philadelphia
    Pittsburgh
    Raleigh, N.C.
    Toronto
    Washington D.C.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-narrows-choices-for-second-headquarters-to-20-1516284607?mg=prod/accounts-wsj

  • IBM’s year-over-year revenue didn’t decline in the last quarter

    Virtually all IBM business units reported increased revenues, including 32 percent growth in the “Systems” unit, which includes hardware and operating systems software — and which interestingly was an area where IBM definitely struggled in the past, though its z Systems and storage line is showing some clear growth now.

    IBM’s hybrid cloud services, as well as security and mobile service, which fall under the “Technology Services & Cloud Platforms” segment, saw 15 percent growth in the last quarter, even as the overall segment saw a 1 percent drop in revenue, to $9.2 billion.

    The company also notes that it took a $5.5 billion charge because of the enactment of the U.S.’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. IBM’s GAAP tax rate, including this one-time charge, was 124 percent for Q4 and 49 percent for the full year. That’s not unexpected, but it may hurt the company as it’s looking to grow its revenue over the next few quarters.

    https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/18/ibms-year-over-year-revenue-didnt-decline-in-the-last-quarter/?ncid=rss

Photo: Ken Goulding

Supplier Report: 1/5/2018

Here we go again… there is another security flaw that could impact almost all connected computers.  This time the issue is at the CPU kernel level and it could take some time to completely correct.

Amazon is one of the companies impacted by this flaw, but on the bright side, their bets on home speakers, video and music services, and grocery stores are paying off. The company also seems to be making progress on ridding themselves of Oracle software internally and in their service offerings.

And last but not least, Google is saving billions of dollars in another off-shore tax shelter plan.

Acquisitions

  • Microsoft acquires Avere Systems, file-storage vendor for Windows and Linux

    Microsoft announced intentions to buy the Pittsburgh, Penn.-based vendor on Jan. 3 for an undisclosed amount.

    Avere has developed file system and caching technologies designed to speed access to compute and storage in hybrid environments. Avere provides NFS and SMB file storage for Windows and Linux clients running in the cloud, hybrid, and on-premises environments.

    http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-acquires-avere-systems-file-storage-vendor-for-windows-and-linux/

  • How FANG Stocks Left the Media Business Snakebitten: A 2017 Retrospective

    But media moguls aren’t taking all this lying down; to defang FANG, they’re fighting with fire. They are remaking their companies in the same mold as their tech rivals, first by striking the deals necessary to scale into a group of fewer but bigger businesses that can at least approach the size of a quartet boasting a combined market capitalization of $1.9 trillion. They are also pivoting toward their rivals’ style of data-driven streaming direct to the consumer. As Murdoch summed it up in the wake of the Disney deal, “Silicon Valley is spending tens and tens of billions on entertainment programming,” he told NPR. “So it makes sense to bulk up the entertainment side, so that we’ve got a company that can go direct to consumers in a big way.”

    Nothing defined the media sector more in 2017 than the mergers and acquisitions that have been the order of the day to appease an increasingly skeptical Wall Street. In addition to the Fox-Disney stunner, there was the $14.6 billion union of Discovery and Scripps completed in November. More such deals seem inevitable next year, such as the potential for Shari Redstone to engineer the reunion of CBS Corp. and Viacom. Maybe someone in Silicon Valley will finally buy one of the content companies as well.

    http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/fang-facebook-amazon-netflix-amazon-2017-1202645607/

  • Inside the Eccentric, Relentless Deal-Making of Masayoshi Son

    Chris Lane, an analyst with Sanford Bernstein, says about eight in 10 of the investors he talks with are skeptical of Son. They see him as a solid telecom operator who is taking enormous risks with his investments and has demonstrated no special skill in technology investment. Lane sees clear evidence of that disbelief: SoftBank’s stock in Alibaba and other assets are worth more than 19 trillion yen after subtracting all its debt, but SoftBank’s market cap is only 9.8 trillion yen. It’s like your neighbor having a suitcase stuffed with $1 million in cash, but you’ll only pay him $500,000 for it because you think he’ll lose the rest on the way to your house. Critics not only don’t believe Son can pick the next Alibaba; they’re convinced he’s going to squander what he already has.

    “If you think of this as a telco making unrelated investments and likely to lose money, then maybe the discount is right,” Lane says. “If you think this is a sophisticated technology investment firm with a strong track record, then this is an unbelievable opportunity.”

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-01-02/inside-the-eccentric-unstoppable-deal-making-of-masayoshi-son

Artificial Intelligence

  • China emerges as a hotbed for artificial intelligence (thanks JD!)

    The rapid growth of AI in China can also be partly attributed to government support. Beijing laid out a development plan in July to become a world leader in AI, aiming to build a domestic AI industry worth at least 1 trillion yuan (around $1.5 billion), according to a government document. Chirag Dekate, research director of high-performance computing for Gartner, thinks China is getting into AI for the long haul. “The U.S. is driving AI innovation across the spectrum, in software and hardware,” said Dekate in an interview with Investor’s Business Daily. “Early use cases and early adopters are happening more in the U.S. than any geography in the world. But China is looking at it from a marathon perspective.”

    https://digiday.com/marketing/china-emerges-hotbed-artificial-intelligence/

Cloud

  • The CPU catastrophe will hit hardest in the cloud

    But privilege escalation is much scarier in the cloud, where the same server could be working for dozens of people at once. Platforms like Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud let online companies spread a single program across thousands of servers in data centers across the world, sharing hardware the same way you’d share an airplane or a subway car. Collective hardware isn’t a security problem because even when different users are on the same server, they’re in different software instances, with no way to jump from one instance to another. Spectre could change that, letting attackers steal data from anyone sharing the same chip. If a hacker wanted to perform that kind of attack, all they’d have to do is start their own instance and run the program.

    Cloud services are also a lucrative target for anyone hoping to cash in on Spectre. Lots of midsize businesses run their entire infrastructure on AWS or Google Cloud, often trusting the platform with sensitive and potentially lucrative information. Bitcoin exchanges, chat apps, even government agencies all keep passwords and other sensitive data on cloud servers. If you’re running a modern web service, there’s simply no other choice. If someone did set a new exploit running on a cloud instance, there’s no telling what kind of data might shake out.

    https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/4/16850120/meltdown-spectre-vulnerability-cloud-aws-google-cpu

Software/SaaS

  • Facebook has a 100-person engineering team that helps advertisers build tools and infrastructure

    You’d expect any digital media business to offer some degree of technical support to its biggest advertisers, but the solutions engineering team is actually building products.

    For example, it was involved in creating Facebook’s dynamic ads format (where ads show different products to different users based on their activities and interests). Mehta said dynamic ads were first inspired by the complaints of an advertiser he was meeting with in Hamburg, Germany, and he then worked with the Facebook Ads team to create a prototype, eventually leading to a more polished product and broader availability.

    It’s probably safe to say that not every client meeting leads to a new ad format — sometimes Mehta’s team is just helping advertisers understand how to use their existing tools in a more effective way. But that other option, working with the rest of Facebook to build something new, is also on the table.

    https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/29/facebook-solutions-engineering/?ncid=rss

  • Amazon and Salesforce are reportedly making ‘significant progress’ moving away from Oracle technology

    Salesforce is developing its own alternative to Oracle’s database, while Amazon is moving toward open-source technology called NoSQL, sources told The Information. If Amazon and Salesforce could move away from Oracle, it could be proof that other big businesses could, too, one consultant told The Information.

    Oracle’s database technology, as well as the coding language Java, have been the market standard in many industries since at least the 1990s, as one of the first databases to support “http” technologies online.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/02/amazon-salesforce-moving-away-from-oracle-technology-report.html

Security

  • Kernel panic! What are Meltdown and Spectre, the bugs affecting nearly every computer and device?

    In modern architectures, there are inviolable spaces where data passes through in raw, unencrypted form, such as inside the kernel, the most central software unit in the architecture, or in system memory carefully set aside from other applications. This data has powerful protections to prevent it from being interfered with or even observed by other processes and applications.

    Meltdown and Spectre are two techniques researchers have discovered that circumvent those protections, exposing nearly any data the computer processes, such as passwords, proprietary information, or encrypted communications.

    Meltdown affects Intel processors, and works by breaking through the barrier that prevents applications from accessing arbitrary locations in kernel memory. Segregating and protecting memory spaces prevents applications from accidentally interfering with one another’s data, or malicious software from being able to see and modify it at will. Meltdown makes this fundamental process fundamentally unreliable.

    Spectre affects Intel, AMD, and ARM processors, broadening its reach to include mobile phones, embedded devices, and pretty much anything with a chip in it. Which, of course, is everything from thermostats to baby monitors now.

    https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/03/kernel-panic-what-are-meltdown-and-spectre-the-bugs-affecting-nearly-every-computer-and-device/
    Cloud infrastructure vendors begin responding to chip kernel vulnerability

    “We’re aware of this industry-wide issue and have been working closely with chip manufacturers to develop and test mitigations to protect our customers. We are in the process of deploying mitigations to cloud services and are releasing security updates today to protect Windows customers against vulnerabilities affecting supported hardware chips from AMD, ARM and Intel. We have not received any information to indicate that these vulnerabilities had been used to attack our customers.”

    https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/03/cloud-infrastructure-vendors-begin-responding-to-chip-kernel-vulnerability/?ncid=rss

  • Intel was aware of the chip vulnerability when its CEO sold off $24 million in company stock

    But while the public is just being informed about the security problem, tech companies have known about it for months. In fact, Google informed Intel of the vulnerability in June, an Intel representative told Business Insider in a statement.

    That means Intel was aware of the problem before Krzanich sold off a big chunk of his holdings. Intel’s CEO saw a $24 million windfall November 29 through a combination of selling shares he owned outright and exercising stock options.

    The stock sale raised eyebrows when it was disclosed, primarily because it left Krzanich with just 250,000 shares of Intel stock — the bare minimum the company requires him to hold under his employment agreement.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/intel-ceo-krzanich-sold-shares-after-company-was-informed-of-chip-flaw-2018-1

Other

  • Amazon did a lot of funky stuff this year and it’s paying off

    The bet paid off, with AWS now on track to generate more than $10 billion annually. More importantly, that $10 billion annually comes with a pretty healthy margin — though, over time, that margin may slip down. For the time being, though, it’s an impressive business compared to the razor-thin profits that Amazon might generate from its retail operations and a good data point as its media services like video or music start to play out.

    And, as usual, recurring revenue is a story that Wall Street loves. Amazon is a company that people will often tell you not to bet against, and its stock is up more than 50 percent on the year thanks to an array of businesses that all appear to be showing growth and the company’s recent-ish ability to turn a profit. Amazon can thank AWS a lot for that.

    https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/29/amazon-did-a-lot-of-funky-stuff-this-year-and-its-paying-off/?ncid=rss

  • Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund Makes Monster Bet on Bitcoin

    Relatively few mainstream investors have bought large sums of bitcoin, scared off by concerns about cybersecurity and liquidity, as well as more mundane fears of investment losses. Even some of those who do own it are cautious about speaking too publicly, lest they draw the attention of hackers.

    The recent price plunge has also spooked some. On Dec. 22, the prominent investor Michael Novogratz said he was delaying launching a crypto-focused hedge fund for outside investors, stating “we didn’t like market conditions for new investors.” South Korea announced last week it would crack down on cryptocurrency trading, an ominous sign given that the country at one point accounted for as much as one-fourth of global bitcoin trading activity.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/peter-thiels-founders-fund-makes-big-bet-on-bitcoin-1514917433

  • Google used a popular tax trick to shelter $19.2 billion

    Newly published Netherlands regulatory filings show that Google shielded €15.9 billion (about $19.2 billion) in 2016 using the popular “Dutch Sandwich” tax trick, saving it about $3.7 billion in taxes. The maneuver involves shifting revenue from an Irish subsidiary to a Dutch firm with no staff, and promptly moving the funds to a Bermuda mailbox owned by another Ireland-listed company. And this practice isn’t slowing down — Google moved 7 percent more cash through this approach in 2016 than it did a year earlier.

    https://www.engadget.com/2018/01/02/google-dutch-sandwich-tax-maneuver/

 

Supplier Report: 12/22/2017

Twas the Supplier Report before Xmas and I have to admit…
I didn’t predict Google’s announcement of the step-down of Eric Schmidt.

On to other things that you should know…
Apple confirmed they made your phone slow.

Here, at the end of the fourth term…
Oracle and Accenture bought out two firms.

And finally, our friends at Comcast and AT&T…
Are rewarding their employees financially.

This bonus is a result of the FCC…
Making changes to how we access content digitally.

Acquisitions

  • Oracle to Buy Australian Software Maker Aconex

    Oracle Corp. has struck a $1.2 billion deal to buy an Australian project-management software provider, the latest leg in its push to take on Amazon.com Inc. and others in selling cloud-computing services.

    The California-based software company on Monday said it had entered a binding takeover agreement after offering 7.80 Australian dollars ($5.96) cash a share for Aconex Ltd., valuing the Australian company at A$1.6 billion.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/oracle-to-buy-australian-software-maker-aconex-1513551593

  • Accenture acquires Irish creative agency Rothco

    Accenture has entered into an agreement to acquire Rothco, a full-service creative agency. Located in Dublin, Rothco will boost Accenture Ireland’s creative capabilities and those of Accenture Interactive as an experience agency in Europe. Thanks to acquisitions including Brand, Karmarama and Australia’s The Monkeys, among a great many other creative agencies, Accenture Interactive is now thought by many to rank as one of the world’s biggest digital agencies, leading to the creative wing delivering high-profile end-to-end solutions for global brands including Pearson publishing, although their actual size and influence is still a matter hotly contested by advertising industry heavyweights such as WPP.

    https://www.consultancy.uk/news/15070/accenture-acquires-irish-creative-agency-rothco

Artificial Intelligence

  • Accenture CEO: Company’s ‘Evolving’ its Digital Business to Take Advantage of AI

    To that end, he said, “going forward, Accenture Digital will be focused on three big areas: Accenture Interactive, Accenture Industry X.0 and Accenture Applied Intelligence.” As part of the strategy, Accenture Interactive will work with CMOs to help brands “transform the customer experience,” he said, adding the company is “strengthening our end-to-end marketing capabilities for CMOs by investing to scale intelligent marketing operations.” That capability “combines platforms, analytics and artificial intelligence to run marketing campaigns as a seamless managed service,” he said.

    http://www.mesalliance.org/2017/12/21/accenture-ceo-companys-evolving-digital-business-take-advantage-ai/

    “Accenture Industry X.0″…reminds me when everything was “xtreme” in the late 90’s…kewl marketing terms bra

  • Youngest IBM Watson Programmer Says Do Not Be Afraid of Artificial Intelligence

    The youngest IBM Watson Programmer, Tanmay Bakshi says that the leaders today should not be afraid of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Tanmay and his sister Tanvi, talk to host Kimberli Lewis, of Leadership Beyond Borders on VoiceAmerica’s Business channel, about why AI is important now and for our future.

    Tanmay, one of the youngest cloud computing developers in the world, has been programming since he was 5 and now, at the age of 14, he is building applications engineered to augment human capabilities.

    The Bakshi family immigrated from India to Canada, when both Tanmay and Tanvi were young children. These two Generation Z-ers, talk about what it was like to immigrate, how education and learning is important and why AI is an opportunity not a threat.

    http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/3603688
    Programming AI at 14… I need to re-evaluate how I spend my time.

Cloud

  • Why an (unofficial) anti-Amazon alliance is a very good thing

    Amazon is going to take a lot of effort to stop. Even the three other gargantuan tech companies are in danger of being overwhelmed, as Amazon spends more on R&D than any other company on the planet.

    The risk isn’t that we see more squabbles between competing streaming platforms or hardware availability limits, it’s that the efforts to stop Amazon are so late that retail is dominated by one player with so many network effect positives it’s almost impossible to compete.

    The Big Four look like they’ll be overshadowed by one big player: Amazon. Scott Galloway’s new book The Four is invaluable extended reading on this subject.

    All of this is a U.S.-centric view though – Chinese online retailing behemoth Alibaba has a market cap of $450 billion and on the back on China’s continuing rise, could have the muscle to fight Amazon. Both are currently competing to tap India’s emerging ecommerce market.

    https://www.androidauthority.com/why-an-unofficial-anti-amazon-alliance-is-a-very-good-thing-822092/

  • Cloud Price Comparison: AWS vs. Azure vs. Google

    The charts below show how AWS, Azure and GCP stack up for Linux and Windows instances of various sizes and commitment contracts. And to make the charts a little easier to read, the lowest cost in each category is green, the second lowest is yellow, and the most expensive is pink.
    Linux:

    Windows:

    https://www.datamation.com/cloud-computing/cloud-price-comparison-aws-vs.-azure-vs.-google.html

Datacenter

  • IBM Enters Quantum Computing Business with First Paying Customers

    In addition to JPMorgan Chase, Daimler AG, and Samsung, the first customers include JSR Corporation, Barclays, Hitachi Metals, Honda, Nagase, Keio University, Oak Ridge National Lab, Oxford University, and University of Melbourne. All of them will be will be able to tap into IBM’s 20-qubit quantum computer, which the company installed in November. A 50-qubit system, which is currently just a prototype, will be offered to customers in a future version of the platform.

    Each of the initial clients will use the opportunity to research and develop quantum computing applications related to their area of expertise. In the case of JP Morgan Chase, the company will focus on how the technology can be applied to financial services applications, including trading, portfolio optimization, asset pricing, and risk analysis.

    https://www.top500.org/news/ibm-enters-quantum-computing-business-with-first-paying-customers/

Software/SaaS

  • Acquision of SAP to Ariba (not much of a headline tbh)

    Automation of the fundamental procedure of any supply chain is vital, however it’s insufficient. To gain power of your supply chain and your spending, you have to move your point of view from the procedure to the master plan. What’s more, you have to find an innovation accomplice that can help. An accomplice who can enable you to supplier how you can work together with your providers, who comprehends the complexities of dealing with a solid supply chain, and who can interface all aspects of your obtaining procedure over your whole business while giving your providers an approach to better oversee and grow theirs.

    SAP Ariba coordinates the whole purchasing process over your whole association. When you associate with Ariba Network, you interface with a huge number of providers crosswise over immediate and indirect cost categories.

    http://nbherard.com/business/acquision-of-sap-to-ariba/38270

Other

  • Eric Schmidt stepping down as Alphabet’s executive chairman to become a ‘technical advisor’

    “Larry, Sergey, Sundar and I all believe that the time is right in Alphabet’s evolution for this transition,” he said in the statement. “The Alphabet structure is working well, and Google and the Other Bets are thriving. In recent years, I’ve been spending a lot of my time on science and technology issues, and philanthropy, and I plan to expand that work.”

    Schmidt joined up with Google in 2001, stepping into the role of CEO at the behest of founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, after stints at Sun Microsystems and Novell. Around the time of the company’s 2004 IPO, the trio reportedly pledged to work together for another 20 years.

    Of course, Schmidt handed the baton to Page in 2011. Four years later, when Google restructured to form Alphabet, Page became its CEO, with Sundar Pichai stepping in to take over Google.

    https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/21/eric-schmidt-stepping-down-as-alphabets-executive-chairman-to-become-a-technical-advisor/?ncid=rss

  • Cloud revenue helps Oracle beat earnings forecast this time, but outlook tanks shares

    Oracle said it earned a profit of nearly $3 billion before certain expenses such as stock compensation, or 70 cents a share, up 14 percent from a year ago. Revenue rose 6 percent, to $9.62 billion. Analysts had expected an adjusted profit of 68 cents a share on revenue of $9.57 billion. Traditional on-premises software brought in the vast majority of revenue, at $6.3 billion, up 3 percent. But the portion from new software licenses was flat at $1.35 billion, making growth in cloud revenue crucial.

    Software-as-a-service applications saw growth of 55 percent, to $1.1 billion, while infrastructure as a service, the base-level computing and storage services that compete with public cloud leaders such as Amazon Web Services Inc. and Microsoft Corp.’s Azure, grew only 21 percent. That’s well behind the growth rate of the leaders. But Catz added that the cloud revenue includes older hosting revenue that’s slowing, masking higher growth in newer-generation cloud computing.

    https://siliconangle.com/blog/2017/12/14/cloud-revenue-helps-oracle-beat-earnings-forecast-just-not-enough-investors/

  • Apple: Yes, we’re slowing down older iPhones

    The tech giant issued a rare statement of explanation on Thursday, saying that it has used software updates to limit the performance of older iPhones and prevent them from shutting down unexpectedly.

    Tech analysts and angry customers have reported in recent days that operating system updates had caused older iPhones to slow considerably, with some suggesting that Apple could be using the tactic to encourage fans to buy new phones.

    Apple insists the updates were made with a different goal in mind: It said the performance of lithium-ion batteries degrades over time, which can sometimes cause phones to suddenly shut down in order to protect their components.

    http://money.cnn.com/2017/12/21/technology/apple-slows-down-old-iphones/

  • AT&T, Comcast giving $1,000 bonuses to hundreds of thousands of workers after tax bill

    Telecom giant AT&T was quick to respond to news of U.S. tax reform, announcing it would give some employees bonuses once the legislation is signed into law.

    AT&T said in a press release Wednesday that it would give more than 200,000 of its U.S. workers who are union members a special bonus of $1,000. The company also increased its capital expenditures budget by $1 billion in the U.S.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/20/tax-reform-reaction-att-is-giving-bonuses-to-200000-employees.html

  • Uber Is a Taxi Service, the E.C.J. Rules, in Major Setback for Firm

    In the decision, the court determined that Uber, which connects drivers with riders through a smartphone app for payments, “must be regarded as being inherently linked to a transport service.” The 28 member countries in the European bloc will have to regulate “the conditions under which such services are to be provided,” the court added.

    The European court ruling applies across the European Union, but not elsewhere. In a statement, the company said that it was already operating under the transportation law of most European countries in which it did business, and that the ruling would have little impact. It added that it would continue a dialogue with cities across Europe for its services.

    The case may provide a benchmark for countries seeking to regulate independent workers, who make up as much as 30 percent of the working-age population in the United States and Europe, according to the McKinsey Global Institute. Some worry, though, that such a group could soon become an underclass.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/20/business/uber-europe-ecj.html

Photo: Kira auf der Heide