Tag: Cisco

Posted on

Big Tech’s Job Eliminations

Over the last six months, several technology companies announced job eliminations. Recently, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) companies were hit hard…

Pegasystems, a software company that specializes in CRM, announced a 4% reduction of its workforce. The company cited the need to “streamline its operations” and focus on key growth areas such as artificial intelligence and cloud computing.

CRM giant Salesforce announced the elimination of about 8,000 jobs worldwide as well as closing some offices. The reductions seemingly focused Tableau employees and there are rumors of more reductions in Salesforce sales teams.

Additional job eliminations in the last 6 months:

As companies reduce their workforce and thus their redundancy, how does that impact their ability to support their customers?

According to Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, layoffs don’t work to improve company performance. Academic studies have shown that time and time again, workplace reductions don’t do much to reduce costs:

  • Severance packages cost money
  • Layoffs increase unemployment insurance rates
  • Cuts reduce workplace morale and productivity as remaining employees are left wondering, “Could I be fired too?”

The trend of recent tech layoffs highlights the post-pandemic economic reality of labor shortages and the disappearance of cheap money. As organizations focus on streamlining their operations and redirecting resources towards key growth areas like automation, digital, and AI – layoffs and cost reductions will continue to be the reality.

Posted on

Supplier Report: 6/5/2020

As COVID-19 continues to disrupt the global economy, some companies are taking advantage and making acquisitions as other organizations are announcing expense cuts.  IBM is backing out of their relationship with WeWork in NYC and Google is rescinding offers to 2,000 consultants.

Meanwhile, Google’s legal issues in the United States are expanding as Arizona is suing the company due a lack of privacy controls.

Acquisitions/Investments

  • Cisco acquires ThousandEyes for around $1 billion to make deeper push into software

    ThousandEyes will be part of Cisco’s new Networking Services business unit, which is run by Todd Nightingale, the company said in the release. The purchase follow’s Cisco’s 2017 acquisition of AppDynamics for $3.7 billion, which brought in software that helps companies spot bugs in their apps and quickly fix them.

    In addition to AppDynamics, Cisco’s prior software deals include the $2.35 billion purchase of Duo Security in 2018, to bulk up in the authentication space, and the $1.9 billion acquisition of Broadsoft in 2017, to add technology for contact centers.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/28/cisco-acquires-thousandeyes-to-make-deeper-push-into-software.html

  • Apple just bought another AI startup to help Siri catch up to rivals Amazon and Google

    Inductiv Inc.’s technology automates the process of correcting flaws in data through the use of artificial intelligence. It’s one of several acquisitions Apple has made recently, following its purchase of the popular weather app DarkSky and virtual reality entertainment platform NextVR.

    Although Apple doesn’t disclose the purpose behind its acquisitions, Bloomberg reports that Inductiv’s engineering team is working on Siri, data science, and machine learning. Apple launched Siri back in 2011 on the iPhone 4S, long before Amazon introduced Alexa and Google launched the Google Assistant.

    https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-buys-ai-startup-inductiv-siri-catch-up-amazon-google-2020-5

  • What Hertz Had Under the Hood Wasn’t Pretty

    The proximate cause of Hertz’s demise was of course the sudden collapse in bookings caused by coronavirus travel restrictions. The company’s monthly revenue fell 73% year-on-year in April, a shortfall that even the most resilient companies would struggle to withstand for long.

    But Hertz’s complicated financial plumbing contributed to it becoming one of the most high-profile companies to seek protection from creditors during the corona crisis. In the decade preceding its collapse, Hertz took on too much debt, participated in overpriced M&A and was accused of playing accounting games to pad its earnings.

    So when disaster struck and a request for a government bailout was rejected (rightly in my view considering top shareholder Carl Icahn is worth some $18 billion), Hertz was already standing far too close to the precipice. Regrettably Covid-19 will probably expose more of this type of corporate frailty, both in America and around the world.

    Hertz’s debt binge began when it was acquired by private equity firms from Ford Motor Co. in 2005; the new owners quickly took out a $1 billion dividend. Piling on debt juiced the potential returns for the owners and helped pay the inflated $2.3 billion price tag for the Dollar and Thrifty brands in 2012, which Hertz struggled to integrate.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-05-26/why-even-carl-icahn-couldn-t-save-hertz-from-chapter-11

Artificial Intelligence/Robotics

  • A Case for Cooperation Between Machines and Humans

    In contrast, Dr. Shneiderman has sketched out a two-dimensional alternative that allows for both high levels of machine automation and human control. With certain exceptions such as automobile airbags and nuclear power plant control rods, he asserts that the goal of computing designers should be systems in which computing is used to extend the abilities of human users.

    This approach has already been popularized by both roboticists and Pentagon officials. Gill Pratt, the head of the Toyota Research Institute, is a longtime advocate of keeping humans “in the loop.” His institute has been working to develop Guardian, a system that the researchers have described as “super advanced driver assistance.”

    “There is so much that automation can do to help people that is not about replacing them,” Dr. Pratt said. He has focused the laboratory not just on car safety but also on the challenge of developing robotic technology designed to support older drivers as well.

    Similarly, Robert O. Work, a deputy secretary of defense under Presidents Trump and Barack Obama, backed the idea of so-called centaur weapons systems, which would require human control, instead of A.I.-based robot killers, now called lethal autonomous weapons.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/21/technology/ben-shneiderman-automation-humans.html

  • Microsoft sacks journalists to replace them with robots

    The team working on the Microsoft site did not report original stories but still exercised editorial control, selecting stories produced by other news organisations – including the Guardian – and editing content and headlines where appropriate to fit the format. The articles were then hosted on Microsoft’s website, with the tech company sharing advertising revenue with the original publishers.

    Manual curation of news stories also ensured that headlines were clear and appropriate for the format, while encouraging a spread of political opinions and avoiding untrustworthy stories, while highlighting interesting articles from smaller outlets.

    Some of the journalists now facing redundancy had longstanding experience in the industry, while for others it offered a foot in the door and a job in an industry which has seen wave after wave of cuts. They now face a tough challenge to get jobs elsewhere when the whole industry is looking to cut costs. Other teams around the world are expected to be affected by Microsoft’s decision to automate the curation of its news sites.

    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/may/30/microsoft-sacks-journalists-to-replace-them-with-robots

Security/Privacy

  • Arizona sues Google claiming it illegally tracked Android users

    The state argued that Google made it too complicated to completely disable tracking, forcing users to dig into granular Android system settings. “When consumers try to opt out of Google’s collection of location data, the company is continuing to find misleading ways to obtain information and use it for profit,” Brnovich told The Post. The state is asking the court to force Google to pay back Arizona profits earned through ads that monetized the data, as well as potential fines of up to $10,000 per violation.

    “The Attorney General and the contingency fee lawyers filing this lawsuit appear to have mischaracterized our services,” a Google spokesperson told Engadget in a statement. “We have always built privacy features into our products and provided robust controls for location data. We look forward to setting the record straight.”

    https://www.engadget.com/arizona-google-lawsuit-android-smartphone-tracking-080511589.html

  • Chrome: 70% of all security bugs are memory safety issues

    Half of the 70% are use-after-free vulnerabilities, a type of security issue that arises from incorrect management of memory pointers (addresses), leaving doors open for attackers to attack Chrome’s inner components.

    The percentage was compiled after Google engineers analyzed 912 security bugs fixed in the Chrome stable branch since 2015, bugs that had a “high” or “critical” severity rating.

    The number is identical to stats shared by Microsoft. Speaking at a security conference in February 2019, Microsoft engineers said that for the past 12 years, around 70% of all security updates for Microsoft products addressed memory safety vulnerabilities.

    https://www.zdnet.com/article/chrome-70-of-all-security-bugs-are-memory-safety-issues/

Other

  • IBM Leaving 70K SF WeWork Outpost in Union Square

    IBM will ditch its office at 88 University Place — which it has occupied for three years for its marketing division — after Labor Day and already gave notice to WeWork it was leaving, Business Insider reported.

    “The company continually looks at our real estate to ensure it services the needs of IBMers and how we serve our clients,” Doug Shelton, a spokesman for IBM, said in a statement. “WeWork was a terrific partner and we’re very grateful for the WeWork staff at 88 University, who served us during our tenure at that site.”

    A spokesman for WeWork did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

    https://commercialobserver.com/2020/05/ibm-leaving-70k-sf-wework-outpost-in-union-square/

  • Google reportedly rescinds 2,000 contract worker jobs

    The 2,000 contract positions would have been located across the globe, according to the Times, and they represent a small fraction of Google’s workforce. The company reportedly has more than 130,000 contractors on top of 123,000 employees.

    Still, it speaks to the significant hiring slowdown that Porat telegraphed last month. The pandemic has caused a slowdown in the advertising market, which is where Google makes the vast majority of its money. Revenue from advertising was still up year over year for Google’s first quarter, but growth was slowing.

    These rescinded offers pose bigger problems for the people who are now out of work. The Times reports that some people left full-time positions to accept the contract jobs with Google. Because they left their positions voluntarily, they may not be eligible for unemployment benefits.

    https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/29/21274500/google-contract-job-workers-coronavirus-ad-revenue-slowdown

Posted on

Supplier Report: 8/30/2019


Photo by Priya Berks on Unsplash

August was a hot month for M&A. There is even more purchasing activity by Microsoft, Splunk, and WordPress (reinforcing how inept Yahoo leadership was during their last few years of independence).

Oracle is facing a revolt from their shareholders over the 2016 acquisition of NetSuite (which Oracle founder Larry Ellison had a significant personal stake in). Oracle isn’t making the strides they need to in the cloud space and NetSuite has not yet become the sales driver it was promised to be.

President Trump (and the rest of the US) and China seem destined for a trade war.  Cisco and Apple have cited China as a cause for sales projections to drop.

Acquisitions/Investments

  • Splunk acquires cloud monitoring service SignalFx for $1.05B

    SignalFx, which emerged from stealth in 2015, provides real-time cloud monitoring solutions, predictive analytics and more. Upon close, Splunk argues, this acquisition will allow it to become a leader “in observability and APM for organizations at every stage of their cloud journey, from cloud-native apps to homegrown on-premises applications.”

    Indeed, the acquisition will likely make Splunk a far stronger player in the cloud space as it expands its support for cloud-native applications and the modern infrastructures and architectures those rely on.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/21/splunk-acquires-cloud-monitoring-service-signalfx-for-1-05b/

  • Microsoft acquires jClarity, a Java performance tuning tool

    Microsoft announced this morning that it was acquiring jClarity, a service designed to tune the performance of Java applications. It will be doing that on Azure from now on. In addition, the company has been offering a flavor of Java called AdoptOpenJDK, which they bill as a free alternative to Oracle Java. The companies did not discuss the terms of the deal.

    As Microsoft pointed out in a blog post announcing the acquisition, they are seeing increasing use of large-scale Java installations on Azure, both internally with platforms like Minecraft and externally with large customers, including Daimler and Adobe.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/19/microsoft-acquires-jclarity-an-open-source-java-performance-tuning-tool/

  • Verizon to Sell Tumblr to WordPress.com Owner

    Verizon Communications Inc.  has agreed to sell its blogging website Tumblr to the owner of popular online-publishing tool WordPress.com, unloading for a nominal amount a site that once fetched a purchase price of more than $1 billion.

    Automattic Inc. will buy Tumblr for an undisclosed sum and take on about 200 staffers, the companies said. Tumblr is a free service that hosts millions of blogs where users can upload photos, music and art, but it has been dwarfed by Facebook , Reddit and other services.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/verizon-to-sell-tumblr-to-wordpress-owner-11565640000

    Does anybody want to guess how much Automattic is actually paying? I would say less than $100M. Yahoo was insane to pay $1B for this platform, and Verizon was insane to ban the thing that made people use it.

    Update: Tumbler was reportedly purchased for $3M

  • Oracle is suing Larry Ellison and Safra Catz over the $9 billion

    The subject of the lawsuit is Oracle’s $9.3 billion acquisition of NetSuite in 2016, a deal in which a company that Ellison controls — Oracle — paid a premium price to buy a company that Ellison owned. Ellison was NetSuite’s founder and largest shareholder, with a roughly 40% stake.

    The lead lawyer for Firemen’s Retirement System, Joel Friedlander, also said in a hearing in June “We’re seeking multiple billions of dollars in damages.”

    While tossing a multi-billion figure around a hearing is sometimes just lawyerly bravado, in this case, there’s some meat to that number. The NetSuite deal put about $3.5 billion in cash from Oracle’s coffers into Ellison’s pocket.

    https://www.businessinsider.com/oracle-board-members-support-lawsuit-against-larry-ellison-safra-catz-2019-8

  • VMware says it’s looking to acquire Pivotal

    VMware today confirmed that it is in talks to acquire software development platform Pivotal Software, the service best known for commercializing the open-source Cloud Foundry platform. The proposed transaction would see VMware acquire all outstanding Pivotal Class A stock for $15 per share, a significant markup over Pivotal’s current share price (which unsurprisingly shot up right after the announcement).

    Pivotal’s shares have struggled since the company’s IPO in April 2018. The company was originally spun out of EMC Corporation (now DellEMC) and VMware in 2012 to focus on Cloud Foundry, an open-source software development platform that is currently in use by the majority of Fortune 500 companies.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/14/vmware-says-its-looking-to-acquire-pivotal/

Artificial Intelligence

  • Amazon’s AI Can Now Identify Fear

    For those who haven’t heard of the Big Brother-esque Rekognition software, it’s basically a system of neural nets trained on big data (i.e. a ton of photographs and videos) to identify and label objects such as text, activities, “inappropriate behavior,” people, and faces. And if you think Big Brother-esque is a bit of a stretch to describe Rekognition, keep in mind that it’s already being deployed by law enforcement to identify people’s faces. Which isn’t necessarily a bad application in itself, but let your imagination run wild and things could quickly evolve into a Philip K. Dick novel.

    While fear was specifically noted by Amazon as a new emotion that Rekognition can identify, it’s actually only one addition to a number of improvements the AI is making. Along with identifying emotions, Amazon says that Rekognition is now also better at spotting gender and age range. Combined with the aforementioned list of other objects that Rekognition can identify, it’s clear that Amazon wants this software to be able detect and label absolutely any type of image you throw at it.

    https://nerdist.com/article/amazon-rekognition-ai-identify-fear/

  • IBM joins Linux Foundation AI to promote open source trusted AI workflows

    As a Linux Foundation project, the LF AI Foundation provides a vendor-neutral space for the promotion of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) open source projects. It’s backed by major organizations like AT&T, Baidu, Ericsson, Nokia and Huawei.

    IBM has a long history of supporting open source, and Moore explained why it’s the right way to quickly raise the bar when it comes to building trustworthy AI. “To get all of us working together, iterating quickly, can cover a lot more ground than any single company can,” he said.

    On top of that, supporting open source projects has the added benefit of expanding the market opportunity for AI vendors like IBM. The goal, Moore said, is to build tools that improve the credibility of AI — and “to do it together, in a way that everybody can inspect and contribute to.”

    https://www.zdnet.com/article/ibm-joins-linux-foundation-ai-to-promote-open-source-trusted-ai-workflows/

Cloud

  • IBM updates cloud-native software with Red Hat OpenShift

    Overall, IBM has unveiled more than 100 new and/or updated software products and services across its Red Hat OpenShift-optimized software portfolio. These new solutions will be delivered on IBM’s hybrid multicloud platform, which is built using open source technologies just like Red Hat OpenShift.

    Some of the new services that are optimized for this open source environment include Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud and Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Z and LinuxONE. Additionally, IBM has unveiled new consulting and technology services delivered by Red Hat certified consultants and application services practitioners. These services are designed to help users better move, build, and manage their workloads in various cloud environments, while also providing a consistent and simplified experience across clouds.

    http://techgenix.com/red-hat-openshift/

Security/Privacy

  • Huawei employees reportedly aided African governments in spying

    The report cites unnamed senior surveillance officers. The paper adds that an investigation didn’t confirm a direct tie between the Chinese government or Huawei executives. It did, however, appear to confirm that employees for the tech giant played a part in intercepting communications.

    The list includes encrypted messages, the use of apps like WhatsApp and Skype and tracking opponents using cellular data.

    A representative for Zambia’s ruling party confirmed with the paper that Huawei technicians have helped in the fight against news sites with opposing stances in the country, stating, “Whenever we want to track down perpetrators of fake news, we ask Zicta, which is the lead agency. They work with Huawei to ensure that people don’t use our telecommunications space to spread fake news.”

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/14/huawei-employees-reportedly-aided-african-governments-in-spying/

Infrastructure/Hardware

  • Cisco drops on poor guidance, says China business dropped 25%

    “What we’ve seen is in the state on enterprises … we’re just being — we’re being uninvited to bid,” Robbins said. “We’re not being allowed to even participate anymore.” Sales to carriers declined more forcefully as well, he said.

    The majority of Cisco’s revenue comes from sales of data center networking products, including switches and routers. That business is represented by Cisco’s Infrastructure Platforms segment, which came up with quarterly revenue of $7.88 billion, above the $7.84 billion consensus among analyst polled by FactSet.

    The Applications segment had $1.49 billion in revenue, in line with the $1.49 billion FactSet analyst consensus. Cisco’s Security business contributed $714 million in revenue, less than $739.9 million FactSet consensus estimate.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/14/cisco-falls-on-soft-guidance.html

Other

  • How Facebook Is Changing to Deal With Scrutiny of Its Power

    Late last year, Facebook halted acquisition talks with Houseparty, a video-focused social network in Silicon Valley, for fear of inciting antitrust concerns, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions. Acquiring another social network after Facebook was already such a dominant player in that market was too risky, said the people, who spoke on the condition they not be identified because the discussions were confidential.

    Facebook has also begun internal changes that make itself harder to break up. The company has been knitting together the messaging systems of Facebook Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp and has reorganized the departments so that Facebook is more clearly in charge, said two people briefed on the matter. Executives have also worked on rebranding Instagram and WhatsApp to more prominently associate them with Facebook.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/12/technology/facebook-antitrust.html

  • Trump retaliates in trade war by escalating tariffs on Chinese imports and demanding companies cut ties with China

    Trump initially directed his ire at Powell in Friday tweets, painting the Fed’s lack of monetary easing as a greater threat to American workers and businesses. “My only question is, who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powell or Chairman Xi?” he tweeted.

    Moments later, he demanded American companies cut ties with China.

    “Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing your companies HOME and making your products in the USA,” Trump tweeted.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/08/23/china-hits-us-with-tariffs-billion-worth-goods-reinstates-auto-levies-state-media-report/

  • HP CEO steps down, citing ‘family health matter’

    HP Inc. announced this afternoon that Dion Weisler is stepping down as president and CEO. The executive cited a “family health matter” in his decision, noting that he will be returning home to Australia.

    The company already has a successor lined up, as its president of Imaging, Printing and Solutions, Enrique Lores, got unanimous approval from its board of directors. Lores will be assuming the top spot on November 1.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/22/hp-ceo-steps-down-citing-family-health-matter/

Posted on

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: 4/5/2019

March went out with a fizzle when it came to major tech news, but there are a few trends to be aware of…

The EU continues to regulate complex technology with far reaching effects on European users and the entire global population. If critics are correct, the EU’s Copyright Directive Article 13 could split the internet in 3 (Europe, China, and the rest of the world).

Microsoft is showing more aggression against SalesForce via partnerships with Adobe and SAP to leverage LinkedIn to improve marketing integrations and to ensure customers have an easier time moving their cloud data around.

…And Google is getting back into robotics.

Acquisitions

  • Alibaba has acquired Teambition, a China-based Trello and Asana rival, in its enterprise push

    There were rumors of an acquisition circulating yesterday in Chinese media. Alibaba has now confirmed the acquisition to TechCrunch but declined to provide any other details.

    Teambition had raised about $17 million in funding since 2013, with investors including Tencent, Microsoft, IDG Capital and Gobi Ventures. Gobi also manages investments on behalf of Alibaba, and that might have been one route to how the two became acquainted. Alibaba’s last acquisition in enterprise was German big data startup Data Artisans for $103 million.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/29/alibaba-has-acquired-teambition-a-china-based-trello-and-asana-rival-in-its-enterprise-push/

  • Daimler Trucks buys a majority stake in self-driving tech company Torc Robotics

    Daimler Trucks is the world’s largest truck manufacturer and a division of the larger Daimler Group.

    Torc, meanwhile, was founded in 2005. For most of its history, it specialized in self-driving software and sensors for commercial, industrial and military use, before recently shifting its attention to consumer vehicles. Earlier this year, it announced a partnership with public transportation company Transdev to create autonomous shuttles that connect people to transit.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/29/daimler-acquires-torc-robotics/

Artificial Intelligence

  • Google is taking a cautious step back into the world of robotics

    The new operation is simply named Robotics at Google and will be led by AI scientist Vincent Vanhoucke. According to the Times, Google is focusing on using machine learning to teach robots how to grasp objects and navigate environments, but it’s far from clear where the company’s ambitions in this area lie.

    Although Google is a pioneer in AI research, its efforts in robotics have produced no commercial successes to date. The company’s last significant foray into the field started in 2013 with a program named “Replicant” led by Android co-founder Andy Rubin. An initial flurry of activity led to the purchase of six up-and-coming robotics companies, including Boston Dynamics and DARPA challenge winner Schaft.

    But these efforts stuttered, likely because the ambitious machines Google purchased were far away from commercialization

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/27/18283645/google-robotics-program-ai-manipulation-vincent-vanhoucke

Cloud

  • Sundar Pichai met with President Trump about Google’s ‘commitment to working with the US government’

    “I just met with Sundar Pichai, President of Google, who is obviously doing quite well,” President Trump tweeted after the meeting. “He stated strongly that he is totally committed to the U.S. Military, not the Chinese Military. [We] also discussed political fairness and various things that Google can do for our Country. Meeting ended very well!”

    Reached by The Verge, Google confirmed the meeting and its subject matter. “We were pleased to have productive conversations with the President about investing in the future of the American workforce, the growth of emerging technologies and our ongoing commitment to working with the U.S. government,” a Google representative said in a statement.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/27/18284415/sundar-pichai-donald-trump-meeting-white-house

  • Microsoft, Adobe and SAP prepare to expand their Open Data Initiative

    The core principle of the alliance is that the customers own their data and they should be able to get as much value out of it as they can. Ideally, having this common data schema means that the customer doesn’t have to figure out ways to transform the data from these vendors and can simply flow all of it into a single data lake that then in turn feeds the various analytics services, machine learning systems and other tools that these companies offer.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/27/microsoft-adobe-and-sap-prepare-to-expand-their-open-data-initiative/

Security

  • Android users’ security and privacy at risk from shadowy ecosystem of pre-installed software, study warns

    The researchers behind the paper, which has been published in preliminary form ahead of a future presentation at the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, unearthed a complex ecosystem of players with a primary focus on advertising and “data-driven services” — which they argue the average Android user is unlikely to be unaware of (while also likely lacking the ability to uninstall/evade the baked in software’s privileged access to data and resources themselves).

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/25/android-users-security-and-privacy-at-risk-from-shadowy-ecosystem-of-pre-installed-software-study-warns/

  • How IBM is Rethinking its Data Protection Line-Up

    In this particular case, data protection, you now have two products:

    IBM Spectrum Data Protect: the good, old, TSM. While this product is one of those that have written Backup’s history and supports a myriad of Operating Systems and applications as well as backup, it is complex to operate and designed for large environments. Furthermore, it was designed well before the advent of hypervisors and modern applications, making it really tough to protect this environment efficiently.

    IBM Data Protect Plus: a new product designed from the ground up for modern environments, including hypervisors, NoSQL DBs and more. It has a very modern snapshot-based design that pairs nicely with VMWARE CBT (change block tracking) for example. It’s easy to use and can be adopted by IT organizations of all sizes.

    https://gigaom.com/2019/03/29/how-ibm-is-rethinking-its-data-protection-line-up/

Software/SaaS

  • Adobe, Microsoft team to take on Salesforce

    Adobe (ADBE) today announced an extension of its partnership with Microsoft and a new integration with LinkedIn that will accelerate account-based experiences (ABX) through new marketing solution integrations. Adobe and Microsoft are aligning key data sources to populate account-based profiles in Adobe Experience Cloud, including Marketo Engage and Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales. This will empower B2B marketers and sellers to easily identify, understand and engage B2B customer buying teams. This partnership will drive better orchestration, measurement and delivery of targeted content for a more personalized experience at both the individual and account level on key B2B platforms like LinkedIn.

    https://seekingalpha.com/news/3445688-adobe-microsoft-team-take-salesforce

  • Cisco CEO: ‘People Didn’t Think We Could Do’ Network Subscriptions

    Robbins says the company is “on track” to meet its pledge to have software and services account for 30 percent of its revenue over the next three years.

    Cisco’s focus on software and services is helping ePlus not only gain new customers, but go deeper with its existing client base, he said. It’s also making the renewal process a “nonevent.”

    “When you start selling software in a multi-year fashion, you don’t want to sell services only when it’s time to do the renewal,” he said. “The solutions we are selling today are taking a different course in terms of how we interact with customers to make them successful.”

    https://www.crn.com/news/networking/cisco-ceo-people-didn-t-think-we-could-do-network-subscriptions

Infrastructure/Hardware

  • Tech companies not ‘comfortable’ storing data in Australia, Microsoft warns

    This week the Australian tech industry renewed calls for further amendments to controversial encryption-cracking legislation at an industry forum in Sydney.

    Also on Wednesday, Labor’s spokesman on the digital economy, Ed Husic, told the StartupAus forum in Sydney he wished he could “turn back time”, expressing regret for Labor’s role in passing the bill and explaining the opposition feared it would be blamed for a terrorist attack over Christmas if it refused.

    In Canberra, Smith told the Committee for the Economic Development of Australia the law had not yet changed Microsoft’s operations in Australia, but the company was worried about the law’s “potential consequences”.

    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/mar/27/tech-companies-not-comfortable-storing-data-in-australia-microsoft-warns

Other

  • Europe is splitting the internet into three

    Despite setbacks, the most controversial clauses of the Copyright Directive — Article 11 or the ‘link tax’ and Article 13 — have remained pretty much intact.

    Article 11 lets publishers charge platforms like Google News when they display snippets of news stories, while Article 13 (renamed Article 17 in the most recent draft of the legislation) gives sites like YouTube new duties to stop users from uploading copyrighted content.

    In both cases, critics say these well-intentioned laws will lead to trouble. Article 13, they say, will lead to the widespread introduction of “upload filter,” that will scan all user content uploaded to sites to remove copyrighted material. The law does not explicitly call for such filters, but critics say it will be an inevitability as sites seek to avoid penalties.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/27/18283541/european-union-copyright-directive-internet-article-13

  • IBM purged “gray hairs” and “old heads” as it launched “Millennial Corps”: lawsuit

    “In 2015 and 2016, IBM doubled down on its efforts to replace its long-tenured, older employees with the younger Millennials it sought to recruit,” the suit alleged. “IBM made presentations to its senior executives calling for IBM to evaluate its long-term employees more harshly, to use those negative evaluations to justify selecting long-term employees for lay-off, and to replace these employees with ‘EPs’– IBM management short-hand for ‘early professionals.’”

    A 2016 presentation concerning one section of the company “specifically called for managers to exempt all ‘early professional hires’ from layoff, regardless of performance,” the suit claimed. “The long-serving, older employees were provided no such exemption.”

    https://www.denverpost.com/2019/03/28/ibm-ageism-lawsuit-millennial-corps/

  • Amazon To Create 800 New Jobs At Austin Tech Hub

    In a press release, Amazon said the jobs will be in the areas of software and hardware engineering, research science and cloud computing. Amazon said that since it opened its Austin Tech Hub, it has created more than 22,000 full-time jobs in Texas and has invested more than $7 billion in the state, including on infrastructure and compensation to workers.

    “In the last four years, we have created more than 1,000 jobs in Austin,” said Terry Leeper, general manager of Amazon’s Austin Tech Hub, in the press release. “With a strong pool of technical talent in Austin and a dynamic quality of life, we are excited to continue to expand and create more opportunity in this vibrant city.”

    https://www.pymnts.com/amazon/2019/austin-tech-hub-jobs-ecommerce/

Photo by Kido Dong on Unsplash