Tag: Foxconn

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Supplier Report: 8/17/2018

The Source: All about the chip: joey lombardi

CPUs are the main story this week. As companies like AMD develop better processors and better manufacturing methods, former CPU champ Intel is finding ways to divest. The company purchased another AI company to add to their Movidius unit.  Can Intel fend off AMD and companies like Foxconn (who are supporting China’s agenda of creating their own processors)?

Cisco’s strategy to focus on software seems to be paying off as the company saw growth of 6% over last year.

Acquisitions

  • Intel buys deep-learning startup Vertex.AI to join its Movidius unit

    Vertex says that Intel will continue to develop PlaidML as an open source project (see its Github page here), where it will continue to support a variety of hardware under an Apache 2.0 license with an Intel nGraph backend. “We are excited to advance flexible deep learning for edge computing as part of Intel,” the company said.

    Intel, once a pace-setter and leader in the computing industry on the strength of its processors, has lost some momentum amid a new wave of companies building processors for mobile and other next-generation devices.

    https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/16/intel-buys-deep-learning-startup-vertex-ai-to-join-its-movidius-unit/

  • Amazon in Running to Acquire Landmark Movie Chain

    Pushing into movie theaters would follow Amazon’s expansion into myriad other forms of media, including a film and TV studio and music service. With Landmark, it gets a chain focused on independent and foreign films that was founded in 1974. The company has more than 50 theaters, including high-profile locations in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco, with about 250 screens in 27 markets.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-16/amazon-is-said-to-be-in-running-to-acquire-landmark-movie-chain

Artificial Intelligence

  • IBM pushes back on negative Watson Health stories

    In response to the claims, Kelly noted a number of positives for the company, including a Mayo Clinic poster presentation showing improved enrollment in breast cancer trials following implementation of Watson for Clinical Trial Matching and training from Memorial Sloan Kettering on 13 different cancers, which he says represents 80% of the global cancer incidence and prevalence.

    Kelly also noted an extended contract with the Dept. of Veterans Affairs, research showing that its Watson for Genomics found new actionable mutations in 32% of patients and high rates of concordance in breast cancer at Manipal Hospital’s multidisciplinary tumor board.

    https://www.massdevice.com/ibm-pushes-back-on-negative-watson-health-stories/

Cloud

  • Google defends controversial China project in meeting with employees

    “Our stated mission is to organize the world’s information,” Pichai added. “China is one-fifth of the world’s population. I think if we were to do our mission well, I think we have to think seriously about how we do more in China. I genuinely do believe we have a positive impact when we engage around the world and I don’t see any reason why that would be different in China.”

    https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/16/17707324/google-china-search-engine-censorship-response-meeting

Security

  • Teen Allegedly Hacked Into Apple’s Network, Got Caught With ‘Hacky Hack Hack’ Folder

    It’s unclear whether the data he accessed was particularly sensitive. Apple caught the teen and alerted the FBI, which in turn worked with the Australian Federal Police (AFP) to track down the hacker. Authorities seized two laptops, a phone, and a hard drive. They found a folder on one of his computers titled “Hacky Hack Hack,” according to reports.

    https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mb44nn/autralian-teen-hacked-apple-network

  • FBI Is Reportedly Warning Banks That Hackers Are Planning to Make A Global Run on ATMs

    “The FBI has obtained unspecified reporting indicating cyber criminals are planning to conduct a global Automated Teller Machine (ATM) cash-out scheme in the coming days, likely associated with an unknown card issuer breach and commonly referred to as an ‘unlimited operation,’” the FBI letter to banks reads.

    Unlimited operations use malware to gain access to the card information of bank customers and access to the banks’ networks.

    “The cyber criminals typically create fraudulent copies of legitimate cards by sending stolen card data to co-conspirators who imprint the data on reusable magnetic strip cards, such as gift cards purchased at retail stores,” the FBI letter said. “At a pre-determined time, the co-conspirators withdraw accounts funds from ATMs using these cards.”

    https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ywke7w/fbi-is-reportedly-warning-banks-that-hackers-are-planning-to-make-a-global-run-on-atms

Software/SaaS

  • Cisco Extends Growth Streak on Strong Software Sales

    Cisco’s streak—the company generated $12.84 billion in total revenue in its fiscal fourth quarter, up 6% from a year earlier—comes after two years of declines during which it faced increasing pressure from competitors while it relied heavily on slower-growth hardware sales.

    And the company expects the run to continue, providing guidance that calls for revenue growth of between 5% and 7% in the current quarter.

    Cisco has seen its financial fortunes improve, as it focused on software sales, particularly in the security arena. Revenue in its security segment revenue jumped 12% to $627 million.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/cisco-extends-growth-streak-on-strong-software-sales-1534377123

Datacenter/Hardware

  • AMD Set to Crack Intel’s Lock on Data Centers

    There is an opening for AMD because Intel has struggled to transition to a new chip-manufacturing process. One of the companies that makes AMD’s chips, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing , or TSMC, has moved ahead of Intel and is producing the latest version of AMD’s Epyc server processor, which is expected to start shipping in volume next year. Intel doesn’t intend to launch a server chip based on its newest production process until sometime in 2020.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/amd-set-to-crack-intels-lock-on-data-centers-1534439566

  • Foxconn Posts Unexpected Drop in Profit

    Taiwan-based Foxconn said Monday that its net profit for the quarter ended June 30 was 17.5 billion New Taiwan dollars ($566.7 million). That compared with the NT$20.2 billion average estimate of analysts polled by S&P Capital IQ. Its net profit in the year-earlier quarter was NT$17.9 billion.

    Foxconn, known formally as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. 2317 0.12% , is the world’s largest contract electronics maker, and is best known for assembling Apple’s iPhones. Last year, Foxconn relied on Apple for about 54% of its revenue, according to Arthur Liao, an analyst at Fubon Research.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/foxconn-posts-unexpected-drop-in-profit-1534163275

  • Foxconn Pursues Chip Ambitions With Plans for China Plant

    Foxconn said it is developing plans within the partnership, which includes “other stakeholders” in the city. “We will be prepared to announce these plans when they have been finalized in the coming months,” the Taiwan-based company said.

    The initiative comes at a time when China is spending billions of dollars to nurture its own semiconductor industry and reduce its reliance on foreign technology, an effort that has grown more urgent as its attempts to acquire U.S. chip companies have met opposition from the U.S. over national-security concerns.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/foxconn-to-build-semiconductor-plant-in-chinas-pearl-river-delta-1534498173?ns=prod/accounts-wsj

Photo by Brian Kostiuk on Unsplash

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Supplier Report: 5/4/2018

Boston

Amazon announced job expansions in the cities of Boston and Vancouver. This expansion is fueled by the company’s explosive cloud growth (and the riches gained from the ever-increasing Amazon Prime subscription fees). AWS and Prime profits are also covering Amazon’s losses in the retail space, which makes it much harder for their competition.

Fans of WhatsApp should pay attention to the data Facebook is collecting from the app, but alternatives like Signal are running into issues in their attempts to protect user data.

T-Mobile and Sprint finally made the move to merge. Assuming they get government approval, they will be in a better position to claim 5G bandwidth.  Cisco, Oracle, and IBM also made acquisition announcements this week.

Acquisitions

  • T-Mobile and Sprint said to be close to a $26 billion merger

    The two companies have been rumored to merge since 2014, when Sprint attempted to buy T-Mobile. Talks resumed again last year, before ending last November when T-Mobile and Sprint couldn’t find mutual ground. Earlier in April, though, The Wall Street Journal reported that the two companies were once again back at the negotiating table for the third time in four years, and if CNBC’s sources are correct, it seems that this time, the merger might finally be happening.

    The difference this time is said to be a change of heart in Masayoshi Son, the CEO of SoftBank (which owns Sprint), with factors like the lower corporate tax rate, costs of 5G deployment, and increased competition from cable providers helping tip the scales toward a merger, although it’s still possible that things could fall apart again.

    https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/27/17293246/tmobile-sprint-merger-26-billion-telecom-deal-cell-carriers

    Sprint and T-Mobile have announced that they will merge

    The combined company will be based in Bellevue Washington and will be called T-Mobile. Current T-Mobile CEO John Legere will run the combined company, while T-Mobile COO Mike Sievert will become the new company’s COO and President. T-Mobile’s majority owner Deutsche Telekom will hold a 42 percent stake in the company, while Sprint majority owner SoftBank will hold 27 percent, with public stakeholders holding the rest. Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son will sit on the combined company’s board.

    The companies say that by combining, they’ll be able to lower prices and take advantage of “greater economies of scale”. The two companies have trailed their larger rivals, AT&T and Verizon, and the merger between Sprint and T-Mobile will help give them a boost as they begin to deploy their next-generation 5G network across the country. The combined company will have nearly 100 million customers.

    https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/29/17298904/sprint-and-t-mobile-merger

  • Cisco is acquiring business intelligence startup Accompany for $270M

    Founder and CEO Amy Chang has compared the product to a digital chief of staff or personal assistant, giving executives the context they need before conversations and meetings. Cisco plans to incorporate Accompany technology into its collaboration products, for example by introducing company and individual profiles into Webex meetings.

    Cisco says it will pay $270 million in cash and stock in the deal.

    The company probably didn’t have to search too hard to find Accompany, since Chang (who previously served as the head of product for Google’s ad measurement and reporting) has been on Cisco’s board of directors since October 2016. As part of the transaction, she’s resigning from the board, effective immediately.

    https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/01/cisco-acquires-accompany/

  • Oracle Acquires Vocado

    Oracle today announced that it has completed the acquisition of Vocado, which provides a leading student-centric, cloud-based financial aid solution for higher education institutions.

    Vocado works with thousands of financial aid sources to optimize funding for any type of higher education learning model. The solution helps students identify eligibility and obtain financing so they can achieve their academic goals. Vocado integrates its financial aid solution with both cloud and on-premise Student Information Systems (SIS).

    https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/oracle-buys-vocado-300639496.html

  • IBM acquires New Jersey fintech Armanta

    In a blog post, IBM said, “Over the past two years, Armanta and IBM have worked together to deliver financial risk solutions to clients globally. The combination of IBM’s and Armanta’s technology and expertise has allowed IBM to deliver new offerings that have already been adopted in the market. Armanta’s technology has not only enhanced our existing solutions, but also allowed IBM to rapidly develop new offerings for clients.”

    The acquisition will help IBM clients integrate their risk management practices with other front and back-office funtions, while establishing a common set of data analytics and reports for consistency, according to the blog post.

    https://www.wraltechwire.com/2018/05/03/ibm-acquires-new-jersey-fintech-armanta/

Artificial Intelligence

  • Google’s Sergey Brin warns of the threat from AI in today’s ‘technology renaissance’

    But, he says, AI poses a number of problems too, “from the fears of sci-fi style sentience to the more near-term questions such as validating the performance of self-driving cars.” Brin says Alphabet is giving “serious thought” to a number of these issues, including how AI will affect employment; the challenges of making unbiased and transparent algorithms; and the fears that this technology will be used to “manipulate people.” (This is most likely a reference to recent discussions of AI-generated fake news.)

    Notably, though, Brin does not mention one controversial use of AI that is particularly relevant to Alphabet: military applications. Earlier this year, it was revealed that Google was helping the Pentagon deploy machine learning tools to analyze video surveillance footage from drones. The company has said the tech is for “non-offensive uses only,” but thousands of Google employees have demanded that the company withdraw from the project.

    https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/28/17295064/google-ai-threat-sergey-brin-founders-letter-technology-renaissance

Cloud

  • Amazon’s Profit Swells to $1.6 Billion, Lifted by Its Cloud Business

    The company reported that its net income for the first quarter, which ended March 31, was $1.63 billion, or $3.27 per share, compared with net income of $724 million, or $1.48 per share, in the same period last year. Revenue jumped 43 percent to $51 billion, up from $35.7 billion a year earlier.

    Also:

    Revenue from A.W.S., meanwhile, rose 49 percent to $5.44 billion from the same period a year earlier.

    That increase is larger that what the A.W.S. business was seeing just a few quarters ago. It is unusual to see revenue growth increase significantly at Amazon’s size and in a hypercompetitive market, and it seems to have prompted Mr. Bezos to single out the business in his statement.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/26/technology/amazon-prime-profit.html

  • Cramer: Don’t let the bears fool you—Microsoft and Intel just proved the cloud is here to stay

    https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/04/27/cramer-microsoft-and-intel-proved-the-cloud-is-here-to-stay.html
    Did anyone say that the cloud wasn’t the technology of the future? I have to admit that I have a hard time watching Jim Cramer after this public beat down:

Security

  • Google accused of using GDPR to impose unfair terms on publishers

    One objection they have is that Google is apparently intending to switch its status from that of a data processor of publishers’ data — i.e. the data Google receives from publishers and collects from their sites — to a data controller which they claim will enable it to “make unilateral decisions about how a publisher’s data is used”.

    Though for other Google services, such as its web analytics product, the company has faced the opposite accusation: i.e. that it’s claiming it’s merely a data processor — yet giving itself expansive rights to use the data that’s gathered, rather like a data controller…

    The publishers also say Google wants them to obtain valid legal consent from users to the processing of their data on its behalf — yet isn’t providing them with information about its intended uses of people’s data, which they would need to know in order to obtain valid consent under GDPR.

    https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/01/google-accused-of-using-gdpr-to-impose-unfair-terms-on-publishers/

  • Amazon Bends the Knee to Autocrats, Threatens to Cut Off Signal for Using Anti-Censorship Technique

    Amazon officially announced it’s increased focus on stamping out domain fronting on Friday. The statement followed closely behind a similar move by Google. On Monday, Signal founder Moxie Marlinspike posted a communication from Amazon’s team informing the privacy-focused company that it must discontinue any sort of domain fronting practices if it wants to continue using Amazon Web Services. Marlinspike lamented the crackdown, saying that Signal is being censored in Egypt, Oman, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates. The technique has allowed Signal to circumvent those blocks and continue to provide service to citizens of those countries, according to Marlinspike, but for now, it will have to comply with Amazon’s demands.

    https://gizmodo.com/amazon-bends-the-knee-to-autocrats-threatens-to-cut-of-1825697153
    Stop Using WhatsApp If You Care About Your Privacy

    Facebook already harvests some data from WhatsApp. Without Koum at the helm, it’s possible that could increase—a move that wouldn’t be out of character for the social network, considering that the company’s entire business model hinges on targeted advertising around personal data.

    If you care enough about your privacy to delete Facebook (or even change the way you use the social network) you may want to ditch WhatsApp as well. If you need a new, more secure messaging app try Signal, or even iMessage for communicating between Apple devices.

    https://lifehacker.com/stop-using-whatsapp-if-you-care-about-your-privacy-1825719172

Software/SaaS

Datacenter/Hardware

  • Foxconn Just Got Permission to Start Draining Lake Michigan to Make LCD Screens

    Environmental experts have criticized the diversion. Though, as the DNR points out, it amounts to less than a 1 percent increase in the total surface water withdrawals from Lake Michigan, it would result in a loss of 2.7 million gallons per day, mostly due to evaporation (the rest of the water will be treated and then returned to the lake basin). Environmentalists are also concerned that the decision will set a new precedent allowing the fresh water to be used for predominantly commercial purposes, instead of as drinking water.

    https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/wj73x9/foxconn-just-got-permission-to-start-draining-lake-michigan-to-make-lcd-screens

  • Best & Worst Laptop Brands 2018

    Lenovo takes first place again this year, on the strength of the company’s fantastic product lineup. From the beautiful ThinkPad X1 Carbon, which was the only product to get a perfect, 5-star review in the past year, to the versatile Yoga 920, Lenovo’s laptops earned the most Editors’ Choice awards of any brand. And a full 53 percent of the company’s laptops scored 4 or higher. However, Lenovo’s tech support scores declined from last year, and stiff competition from HP and Dell made this a nail-bitingly close race.

    https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/laptop-brand-ratings

Other

  • Amazon Is Losing Billions From Its Retail Business and Rivals Should Be Scared

    The remaining segments are basically Prime, ads, and retail. The company does not separate out the segments from the services income on its 10-Q, but we know the general Prime numbers; 100 million prime members. This next step is an estimate. At that level, Prime brings in $10 billion in sales a year, or roughly $2.5 billion a quarter.

    Using this estimate, the overall business, without AWS and Prime, lost about $2 billion last quarter. Although advertising is included here, too, this loss is almost all from the retail side of the business.

    https://www.thestreet.com/opinion/amazon-is-losing-money-from-retail-operations-14571703

  • Amazon Expands Tech Hub in Boston

    Amazon will create 2,000 jobs in Boston in the fields of machine learning, speech science, cloud computing, and robotics engineering as it gets ready to expand its Tech Hub in the city, one of over a dozen such hubs nationwide.

    Amazon said it has invested over $400 million in the Commonwealth since 2011, from customer fulfillment infrastructure to research facilities. It’s interesting to note that on its Boston job site, Amazon calls it the “Athens of America.”

    https://www.ecommercebytes.com/2018/05/01/amazon-expands-tech-hub-in-boston/

  • Amazon to add 3,000 tech jobs in Vancouver, Canada

    Amazon said the additional jobs will be in e-commerce technology, cloud computing and machine learning. Currently, the company’s Vancouver workers produce new products and services for the company’s international retail business and Amazon Web Services.

    “Amazon’s decision to bring another 3,000 jobs to Vancouver is great news for our city’s booming innovation economy,” Mayor Gregor Robertson said. “We are home to the fastest growing, most resilient and greenest economy in Canada and Amazon’s major expansion in our city means more long-term jobs for people who want to live, work and build a future in Vancouver.”

    https://www.upi.com/Amazon-to-add-3000-tech-jobs-in-Vancouver-Canada/6691525136115/

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Posted on

Supplier Report: 2/9/2018

Companies love to say AI is the future, but some are spending more money on that future than others.

Amazon is going deep on AI within various aspects of their business.  A recent Wired article highlights the projects Amazon is building automation and robotics strategies (managing internal process, mining customer data, and selling automated services in the cloud and via smart speakers). These practices are paying off as Amazon reported their largest profit ever.

Amazon isn’t alone, Foxconn is allocating $340M in automation R&D and IBM keeps advancing Watson’s medical abilities recently developing a method to diagnose certain types of mental illness.

Acquisitions

  • LogMeIn is buying Jive Communications for up to $357M to step up in enterprise unified comms

    Yet more consolidation in the enterprise collaboration software market. Today LogMeIn, the company that offers conferencing services like GoToMeeting and join.me as well as authentication and other online services to businesses and others, announced that it would acquire Jive Communications for $342 million in cash plus up to $15 million based on reaching specific milestones in the next two years.

    Jive Communications is not to be confused with Jive Software, the Slack competitor in enterprise collaboration that itself was acquired last year for $462 million by Aurea. However, it is also in a bigger area of enterprise communications, and underscores how we are continuing to see a lot of M&A and general growth in that market. This is a strong exit for Jive Communications, a Utah-based startup that had raised only around $31 million since it was founded in 2006.

    https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/08/logmein-is-buying-jive-communications-for-up-to-357m-to-step-up-in-enterprise-unified-comms/?ncid=rss

  • Qualcomm rejects Broadcom’s $121 billion bid

    Qualcomm’s board of directors issued a statement on Thursday saying that they are turning down Broadcom’s $121 billion bid to buy the competing chipmaker.

    According to the release, Qualcomm “unanimously rejected” an “unsolicited proposal” to buy all of its shares at $82 each, of which $60 would be cash and $22 stock. Broadcom made the revised offer on Monday, up from the previously proposed deal price of $70 per share.

    https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/08/qualcomm-rejects-broadcoms-121-billion-bid/?ncid=rss

Artificial Intelligence

  • IBM’s New AI Can Predict Psychosis in Your Speech

    The group built on the findings of a 2015 IBM study demonstrating the possibility of using AI to model the differences in speech patterns of high-risk patients who later developed psychosis and those who did not. Specifically, they quantified the concepts of “poverty of speech” and “flight of ideas” as syntactic complexity and semantic coherence, respectively, using an AI method called Natural Language Processing (NLP).

    Their AI then evaluated the speech patterns of patients that researchers instructed to talk about themselves for an hour.

    https://futurism.com/ibm-psychosis-predicting-ai-speech/

  • Foxconn to plug at least $340M into AI R&D over five years

    According to Nikkei, Foxconn intends to recruit up to 100 top AI experts globally. It also said it will recruit thousands of less experienced developers to work on building applications that use machine learning and deep learning technologies.

    Embedding sensors into production line equipment to capture data to feed AI-fueled automation development is a key part of the AI R&D plan, with Foxconn saying earlier that it wants to offer advanced manufacturing experiences and services — eyeing competing with the likes of General Electric and Cisco.

    The company has also been working with Andrew Ng’s new AI startup Landing.ai — which is itself focused on plugging AI into industries that haven’t yet tapping into the tech’s transformative benefits, with a first focus on manufacturing — since July.

    https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/03/foxconn-to-plug-at-least-340m-into-ai-rd-over-five-years/?ncid=rss
    Mentioned this last week, here are some more details.

  • Inside Amazon’s Artificial Intelligence Flywheel

    Amazon loves to use the word flywheel to describe how various parts of its massive business work as a single perpetual motion machine. It now has a powerful AI flywheel, where machine-learning innovations in one part of the company fuel the efforts of other teams, who in turn can build products or offer services to affect other groups, or even the company at large. Offering its machine-learning platforms to outsiders as a paid service makes the effort itself profitable—and in certain cases scoops up yet more data to level up the technology even more.

    It took a lot of six-pagers to transform Amazon from a deep-learning wannabe into a formidable power. The results of this transformation can be seen throughout the company—including in a recommendations system that now runs on a totally new machine-learning infrastructure. Amazon is smarter in suggesting what you should read next, what items you should add to your shopping list, and what movie you might want to watch tonight. And this year Thirumalai started a new job, heading Amazon search, where he intends to use deep learning in every aspect of the service.

    “If you asked me seven or eight years ago how big a force Amazon was in AI, I would have said, ‘They aren’t,’” says Pedro Domingos, a top computer science professor at the University of Washington. “But they have really come on aggressively. Now they are becoming a force.”

    https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-artificial-intelligence-flywheel/

  • Is artificial intelligence killing Japan’s banks? (Thanks JD!)

    Due to Japan’s zero interest rate policy, domestic banks can’t make money on loans, so they’ve become clearinghouses for other financial companies’ products, be it mutual funds or insurance policies. Banks are basically salesmen who collect handling fees for delivering products and services. Once that task is automated or otherwise rendered obsolete by new technology, what’s the point of a bank?

    https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/01/27/national/media-national/artificial-intelligence-killing-japans-banks/#.Wm6pmHNOm7M

Cloud

  • Is Google Losing to Amazon?

    But profitability isn’t why investors favor the retailer over the search engine. Google’s $26.1 billion of operating income last year is about 40% more than Amazon has earned in its entire existence. Nor is it the propensity to make big gambles. The difference is that Amazon has figured out how to make more of its big gambles, such as Prime and its AWS cloud service, drive its accelerating growth. Since 2010, Amazon’s larger revenue base has averaged 28% growth annually while Alphabet’s has averaged 21%.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/is-google-losing-to-amazon-1517662800

  • Amazon Reports Largest Profit Ever

    Amazon’s sales rose 38 percent to $60.5 billion in the quarter, also beating estimates. Its North America revenue jumped 42 percent to $37 billion, while international sales grew 29 percent to $18 billion. Revenue from subscription fees grew 49 percent to $3.2 billion. Advertising and other revenue rose 62 percent to $1.74 billion.

    Amazon Web Services (AWS) continued to be the fastest-growing and most profitable business of the company. The unit posted a 45 percent rise in sales, jumping to $5.1 billion, and saw its profit margin expand from the third quarter. AWS sales accounted for a whopping 64 percent share of Amazon’s total operating income.

    http://chronicleofnews.com/amazon-reports-largest-profit-ever/

Security

  • Crucial iPhone source code posted in unprecedented leak

    Critical, top secret Apple code for the iPhone’s operating system was posted on Github, opening a new, dangerous avenue for hackers and jailbreakers to access the device, Motherboard reported. The code, known as “iBoot,” has since been pulled, but Apple may have confirmed it was the real deal when it issued a DMCA takedown to Github, as Twitter user @supersat noted.

    iBoot is the iOS code that ensures a secure boot by loading and checking that kernel is properly signed by Apple before running the OS. The version that was posted to Github, supposedly by a Twitter user named @q3hardcore, was for iOS 9, but much of it likely still exists in the latest version, iOS 11.

    https://www.engadget.com/2018/02/08/crucial-iphone-source-code-posted-in-unprecedented-leak/

Software/SaaS

  • Oracle’s cloud bravado masks its database despair

    No, we’re not going to see Oracle’s database revenue fall off a cliff. But that might not be because its customers remain committed to the database leader. Instead, they may simply continue to pay for stuff they don’t actually use. As a recent Rimini Street survey showed, as much as 74 percent of Oracle customers are running unsupported, with half of Oracle’s customers not sure what they’re paying for. These customers are likely paying full-fat maintenance fees for no-fat support (meaning they get no updates, fixes, or security alerts for that money).

    https://www.itworld.com/article/3252244/database/oracles-cloud-bravado-masks-its-database-despair.html

  • Where Barry Padgett Plans to Lead Ariba

    The number one lesson by far is that you need to go in with the right drivers. The wrong driver is, “I have a bunch of data. How do I make money on the data?” There are a lot of examples where platforms have come out of the desire to monetize a resource or an asset that you already have, and that is a terrible model — number one, because you end up building the wrong set of services, and, number two, in general, you find over time that people aren’t really willing to pay for it. So you end up doing a bunch of pivots to figure out what your platform story really should be.

    When you go into platform transformation, you really need to do it from the lens of the customer. You have to think about “How does the customer get value out what they’ve already bought from you?” rather than, “How do I charge the customer more, or how do I take what the customer’s generating and create more opportunity for myself financially?” When you really think about it from a customer value perspective, you build out the right set of services in the right way.

    http://spendmatters.com/2018/02/07/creating-legacy-sap-beyond-barry-padgett-plans-lead-ariba/

  • Microsoft is reportedly shifting its Windows strategy as it tries to outmaneuver Apple and Google

    Thurott reports that Microsoft will no longer offer Windows 10 S as a standalone operating system. You could never buy it yourself, but computer manufacturers (OEMs, or “original equipment manufacturers” in industry parlance) could license it from Microsoft to pre-install on the computers they sold to customers.

    Instead, Microsoft will push a so-called S Mode onto all versions of the Windows 10 operating system, reports Thurott. When enabled, S Mode will make any version of Windows 10 act like Windows 10 S, with all of the benefits and tradeoffs therein.

    Microsoft had previously said that S Mode would be coming to Windows 10 for businesses in future updates; this would just bring it to all of the consumer versions, too.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-windows-10-s-dead-or-alive-2018-2

Datacenter

  • Why Mainframes Aren’t Going Away Any Time Soon

    The focus on Linux isn’t the only motivator behind the upsurge in mainframe use in data centers. Increasingly, enterprises with heavy IT needs are finding many advantages to incorporating modern mainframes into their plans. For example, mainframes can greatly reduce power, cooling, and floor space costs. In markets like New York City, where real estate is at a premium, electricity rates are high, and electricity use is highly taxed to reduce demand, these are significant advantages.

    “There was one customer where we were able to do a consolidation of 25 x86 cores to one core on a mainframe,” Santalucia said. “They have several thousand machines that are ten and twenty cores each. So, as far as the eye could see in this data center, [x86 server workloads] could be picked up and moved onto this box that is about the size of a sub-zero refrigerator in your kitchen.”

    http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/hardware/why-mainframes-arent-going-away-any-time-soon

Other

  • Akamai has laid off 400 workers or 5 percent of global workforce

    Akamai, the Cambridge Massachusetts content delivery network and network services provider, announced they had laid off 400 people in their earnings call with analysts yesterday.

    On the call, Akamai CEO Tom Leighton indicated that the 400 people represented 5 percent of the company’s 8000 worldwide workforce. “As part of our effort to improve operational efficiency, we reduced headcounts in targeted areas of the business, most notably in areas tied to our Media business. Overall, we have removed about 400 positions or 5% of our global workforce,” Leighton told analysts.

    He went onto to say that the layoffs actually began at the end of last year and have spilled over into this week. The company sees this as part of an effort to get leaner and cut costs, an effort that predates Elliott Management buying a 6.5 percent stake in the company in December.

    https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/07/akamai-has-laid-off-400-workers-or-5-percent-of-global-workforce/?ncid=rss

  • Best Buy will stop selling CDs as digital music revenue continues to grow

    Despite no longer selling CDs, Best Buy will still sell vinyl for the next two years, which Billboard says is part of a commitment it made to vendors. Sources suggested that Best Buy’s music CD arm was only generating $40 million annually.

    As we’ve previously reported, during the first half of 2017, streaming services accounted for 62 percent of revenue from the US music market. The decline of CD sales has also sparked Warner Music Group to offer voluntary buyouts to its 130 staff working in physical product, according to Billboard.

    It’s not surprising that we’re no longer buying CDs — at least not for new music. The best-selling CD in 2016 was a Mozart boxset, which contained 200 CDs that were individually counted as a separate sale. Users who don’t buy music prefer to stream it via services like Spotify and Apple Music, and gadget makers aren’t really making CD players anymore.

    https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/16973538/bestbuy-target-cd-sales-vinyl-cassette

Photo: Adam Fossier

Posted on

Supplier Report: 11/17/2017

Oracle is trying to make it harder for Chinese firms to purchase U.S. companies by supporting bills that expands the power of the Committee on Foreign Investment.  Meanwhile the rumors of Amazon’s Chinese exit have been greatly exaggerated… the company had to sell off certain assets to comply with Chinese law.

Mashable is about to be purchased by Ziff Davis, leaving some to ponder the viability of digital media.

The viability of the Oath (formerly Yahoo and AOL) is in question with reports of over 500 employees being laid off (4% of their workforce).

Acquisitions

  • Mashable Agrees to Sell to Ziff Davis for Around $50 Million

    The price is approximately one-fifth of the company’s $250 million valuation based on its last investment round in March 2016.

    It is a troubling sign for the broader outlook for digital publishers, particularly those that have embraced the “pivot to video” strategy in an effort to lure more lucrative video ad sales.

    Bloomberg earlier reported that Mashable was close to an agreement to sell to Ziff Davis. Ziff Davis is a subsidiary of J2 Global Inc. and owns brands such as PCMag, IGN, Everyday Health and Offers.com.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/mashable-agrees-to-sell-to-ziff-davis-for-around-50-million-1510863283

Artificial Intelligence

  • Oracle’s Mark Hurd: When companies claim they’re in A.I., ‘most of the time it’s just nonsense’

    Most of the time, when companies claim they’re in the business of artificial intelligence, “it’s just nonsense,” Oracle CEO Mark Hurd said Tuesday.

    “Everybody in [Silicon] Valley’s saying they’re in AI,” Hurd told CNBC’s Jon Fortt during an NYSE Fireside Chat.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/14/oracles-mark-hurd-when-companies-claim-theyre-in-ai-most-of-the-time-its-just-nonsense.html

  • A mirror exposes AI’s inherent flaws in ‘Untrained Eyes’

    Kaino and Williams wanted to reveal how something as seemingly innocuous as a Google search can expose algorithmic bias. Kaino points out that searching for “man” on Google Images surfaces page after page of white men in business suits, looking confidently into the camera, while a search for “woman” brings up a grid of white women in various stages of undress. Untrained Eyes sheds a light on issues of representation, forcing the viewer to confront how a computer, and by extension, an unknown programmer, sees them.

    https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/09/untrained-eyes-engadget-experience/

Cloud

  • Amazon Web Services denies reports of China exit, confirms some asset sales

    No, AWS did not sell its business in China and remains fully committed to ensuring Chinese customers continue to receive AWS’s industry leading cloud services. Chinese law forbids non-Chinese companies from owning or operating certain technology for the provision of cloud services. As a result, in order to comply with Chinese law, AWS sold certain physical infrastructure assets to Sinnet, its longtime Chinese partner and AWS seller-of-record for its AWS China (Beijing) Region. AWS continues to own the intellectual property for AWS Services worldwide. ‎We’re excited about the significant business we have in China and its growth potential over the next number of years.

    https://www.geekwire.com/2017/reports-amazon-web-services-exiting-china-selling-local-partner-300m-deal/

  • Companies will waste over $10 billion in cloud spending in the next year

    “Cloud providers claim they are getting better at helping companies save some of their cloud spending. For example, AWS recently claimed it saved AWS users $500 million by alerting customers when they are overpaying,” says Kim Weins, VP of cloud cost strategy at RightScale. “Unfortunately, this is just a drop in the bucket. RightScale has seen that companies waste, on average, 35 percent of their cloud spend. This equates to $6.4 billion in annualized wasted cost for AWS alone. For the top three public cloud providers (Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform), this represents annualized waste of $10 billion.”

    RightScale points out some ways in which enterprises can control their cloud costs. Forty percent of instances are sized larger than is required for the workload and could be resized — and therefore made cheaper — without impacting performance of the application. Each oversized instance is wasting 50-75 percent, resulting in 11-16 percent of all cloud spend being wasted.

    https://betanews.com/2017/11/13/company-cloud-waste/

  • IBM makes 20 qubit quantum computing machine available as a cloud service

    IBM has been offering quantum computing as a cloud service since last year when it came out with a 5 qubit version of the advanced computers. Today, the company announced that it’s releasing 20-qubit quantum computers, quite a leap in just 18 months. A qubit is a single unit of quantum information.

    The company also announced that IBM researchers had successfully built a 50 qubit prototype, which is the next milestone for quantum computing, but it’s unclear when we will see this commercially available.

    https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/10/ibm-passes-major-milestone-with-20-and-50-qubit-quantum-computers-as-a-service/?ncid=rss
    Satya Nadella’s book mentions the increase in qubits as an important milestone for AI.

Software/SaaS

  • No Wild West here – Workday’s CEO on customer satisfaction

    In my conversations with Workday customers over the last year, customers have showered the company with praise on the company’s efforts to ensure everything goes to plan. I don’t normally include those remarks in my reports because, for me, it is a check mark for the future rather than an item that contributes to an assessment of the project. But then check what Paul Wright of Accuride said to me recently:

    To answer your specific question I think the customers are ready, willing and able to adopt all the technology coming at them. The questions were solid from the audience around the complexities they have in their business, and there were people in the session from all kinds of verticals. The PMs weren’t stumped by anyone. I heard similar stories from my guys who were in sessions around HR, prism analytics, and PaaS. My team was very impressed by how they constructed the open platform, and can’t wait to play with it, we’ve already got some apps in mind.

    https://diginomica.com/2017/11/16/no-wild-west-workday-customer-satisfaction/

Security

  • Google study shows how your account is most likely to be hijacked

    The tech titan found 788,000 credentials that were stolen via keyloggers, 12 million stolen via phishing and 3.3 billion exposed by third-party breaches within a year of investigating black markets. A total of 12 percent of the exposed records it found used Gmail addresses as a username, and seven percent of those accounts reused the Gmail password for other services, making them more vulnerable than the others.

    Howevever, since Google incorporates safety measures to prevent strangers from logging into your account, the company also saw increasingly sophisticated tools capable of collecting data other than usernames and passwords. Among the phishing tools and keyloggers Google examined, 82 percent and 74 percent, respectively, have the capability collect IP addresses. It also found tools that can collect phone numbers, as well as devices’ make and model. Hijackers can then use those info to authenticate the identities of the accounts they’re stealing.

    https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/11/google-study-hijack/

Other

  • The Oath bloodbath continues: 560 people are being laid off

    More cuts are coming to Oath. The entity that houses Yahoo and AOL is in the process of laying off up to 560 people today following Yahoo’s June acquisition by Verizon. That represents slightly less than 4 percent of Oath’s global employee count of 14,000. Among those people were staffers at Yahoo Finance in the U.K., but the cuts apparently aren’t concentrated in a specific brand or geography.

    Verizon in June completed its $4.48 billion acquisition of Yahoo’s assets, which were combined with AOL brands including the HuffPost (formerly The Huffington Post) under a new subsidiary called Oath. Oath laid off 2,100 of its staff after the deal closed, or 15 percent of the workforce.

    https://digiday.com/media/oath-lays-off-560-verizon-acquisition/

  • Oracle Wants to Make It Tougher for Chinese Firms to Buy U.S. Companies

    The bills, which were introduced last week, would expand the power of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), allowing it to review smaller investments and add new national security factors, such as exposure of Americans’ Social Security numbers, for CFIUS to consider.

    CFIUS, an inter-agency panel, reviews proposed transactions for national security concerns. CFIUS can recommend that a transaction be prohibited, but only the president can issue an order to stop or suspend a deal.

    http://fortune.com/2017/11/15/oracle-chinese-firms-buy-u-s-companies/

  • Microsoft plans a 75 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030

    By pushing its carbon neutrality plans and renewable energy commitments, the target puts the company on track to meet the goals set in the Paris Climate Agreement, and of course puts a big tick in its corporate social responsibility box.

    75 percent over 15 years is not a hugely ambitious target, especially when you consider that Microsoft has had carbon reduction on its agenda since 2009, and that despite the environmental programs it has in place, it only manages a lackluster score of C- in Greenpeace’s guide to greener electronics (breaking down to a D+ for both energy and resources).

    https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/14/microsoft-sets-unambitious-but-achievable-carbon-reduction-goal/

  • Foxconn’s Profit Down 39% Amid iPhone Production Woes

    Taiwan-based Foxconn, known formally as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., posted 21 billion New Taiwan dollars (about $695.5 million) in net profit in the three months to September, its statement showed Tuesday. That was lower than the NT$35.6 billion average estimate of analysts polled by the S&P Global Market Intelligence. The 39% decline in profit from the same period a year earlier was Foxconn’s largest drop since 2008, during the global recession, according to data from S&P.

    Apple hasn’t disclosed sales numbers for the iPhone X. The phone made its debut with long lines at Apple stores around the world and shipping delays of five-to-six weeks, showing that the company hadn’t ramped up production enough to meet demand. The delay had shrunk to three to four weeks in the U.S. as of Tuesday afternoon.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/foxconns-profit-down-39-amid-iphone-production-woes-1510666619

Photo: Derek Thomson

Posted on

Supplier Report: 10/20/2017

Google is getting called out for their acquisition practices. Some politicians and journalist think the company set back AI several years by aqui-hiring key talent in the field and holding them back with their business practices.

The big security news this week is that WiFi, specifically WPA2 protocols, have a vulnerability that can be exploited.  This vulnerability impacts both routers and devices.  Check all of your WiFi enabled devices for updates.

IBM made news this week by stopping the profit bleeding (they didn’t make their numbers, but they beat expectations)… the street rewarded the company with an almost 9% stock value increase.  No sarcasm here… it is nice to see IBM get a win after so many months of reporting bad news.

Acquisitions

  • DXC to Merge US Public Sector Business With Vencore, KeyPoint; Mac Curtis to Lead Combined Firm

    DXC Technology has agreed to merge its U.S. public sector business with Vencore and KeyPoint Government Solutions to establish a “top five” independent, publicly traded contractor within the government information technology services sector.

    All three companies expect to complete the merger by the end of March 2018, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions, DXC said Wednesday.

    The combined company is expected to have more than 14,000 employees and generate approximately $4.3 billion in annual revenue with a focus on cybersecurity, big data analytics, systems engineering, enterprise IT and cloud engineering services.

    https://www.govconwire.com/2017/10/dxc-to-merge-us-public-sector-business-with-vencore-keypoint-mac-curtis-to-lead-combined-firm/

  • Infinidat raises $95m, becoming latest Israeli ‘unicorn’

    Last week, Herzliya and Waltham, Massachusetts-based Infinidat announced it had closed a $95 million Series C financing round, led by Goldman Sachs Private Capital Investing with participation from existing investor TPG Growth.

    The latest round brings the total raised by the company to $325 million. Infinidat is valued at $1.6 billion, making it the latest Israeli “unicorn” – a private startup with a valuation of $1 billion or more (although the company was claiming a billion-dollar valuation two years ago already).

    https://www.israel21c.org/infinidat-raises-95m-becoming-latest-israeli-unicorn/

Artificial Intelligence

  • Companies Leave Bean Counting to the Robots

    Roberta doesn’t have a last name, a face, or arms. She is the first piece of robotic software to work in the Norwegian company’s treasury department, part of Statoil’s push toward automation, robotics and artificial intelligence, said Mr. Kjøllesdal, acting head of internal treasury.

    Finance executives at companies including Nokia Corp., Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Orange SA are developing their own Robertas. Two thirds of large global companies expect to automate some or most of their finance-department tasks over the next two to three years, according to new research by The Hackett Group Inc. Hackett’s report is based on benchmark and performance studies at hundreds of large global companies.

    But finance executives aren’t turning to robots just for savings. Automation can cut error rates by up to 66%, according to the Hackett report. It would also facilitate more analysis and smarter decisions by allowing employees to reduce the time spent on data collection by 24%.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/companies-leave-bean-counting-to-the-robots-1508407203

  • Google pledges $1 billion to prepare workers for automation

    While the initiative’s offerings are for US residents, Google has also pledged $1 billion in grants to non-profits that also aim to help people prepare for the changing nature of work in an increasingly high-tech world. The big G isn’t the only tech giant aiming to prevent massive job losses brought about by automation and technology in general. In Michigan, Facebook also pledged $25.5 million in training the state’s workers for high-tech jobs.

    https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/13/grow-with-google/

  • Google Has Made a Mess of Robotics

    None of the acquired companies have robots in use beyond the offices of Google’s now-parent company, Alphabet Inc. At least three key robotics chiefs who joined in that 2013 wave left the company in the last few months, and, because four years is the typical vesting period for Google stock options, they probably won’t be the last. At this point, Myers says, the exodus counts as a win for robotics, since many of the brightest minds in the field have essentially spent the past few years trapped in a time capsule. Ultimately, Google’s run on roboticists “held the industry back more than moving it forward,” she says. Alexa Dennett, a spokeswoman for Alphabet’s skunk works, X, says its robotics projects will likely take at least five more years to come to market because substantial technological advances take time.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-12/google-has-made-a-mess-of-robotics

Datacenter/Desktop

  • Samsung’s phone-as-desktop concept now runs Linux

    Samsung’s DeX is a clever way to turn your phone into a desktop computer. However, there’s one overriding problem: you probably don’t have a good reason to use it instead of a PC. And Samsung is trying to fix that. It’s unveiling Linux on Galaxy, an app-based offering that (surprise) lets you run Linux distributions on your phone. Ostensibly, it’s aimed at developers who want to bring their work environment with them wherever they go. You could dock at a remote office knowing that your setup will be the same as usual.

    https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/19/samsung-introduces-linux-on-galaxy/

Software/SaaS

  • IBM is using the blockchain to speed up and simplify cross-border payments

    The computing giant has teamed up with blockchain startup Stellar and payment company Kickex to launch a cross-border payment system for banks which uses the blockchain to “reduce the settlement time and lower the cost of completing global payments for businesses and consumers.”

    Currently, international transactions take days, if not weeks, to be completed. Frustration with that has seen services like TransferWise rise, but, great as they are, they remain solutions for savvy consumers or small businesses rather than all.

    A blockchain solution for banks addresses the root cause, and it could minimize the potential for errors thanks to the ledger-based system while also providing transparency and flexibility to banks.

    https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/16/ibm-cross-border-payments-blockchain/?ncid=rss

Security

  • Severe flaw in WPA2 protocol leaves Wi-Fi traffic open to eavesdropping

    The proof-of-concept exploit is called KRACK, short for Key Reinstallation Attacks. The research has been a closely guarded secret for weeks ahead of a coordinated disclosure that’s scheduled for 8am Monday, East Coast time. A website disclosing the vulnerability said it affects the core WPA2 protocol itself and is effective against devices running the Android, Linux, Apple, Windows, and OpenBSD operating systems, as well as MediaTek Linksys, and other types of devices. The site warned attackers can exploit it to decrypt a wealth of sensitive data that’s normally encrypted by the nearly ubiquitous Wi-Fi encryption protocol.

    The site went on to warn that visiting only HTTPS-protected Web pages wasn’t automatically a remedy for the risk.

    “Although websites or apps may use HTTPS as an additional layer of protection, we warn that this extra protection can (still) be bypassed in a worrying number of situations,” the researchers explained. “For example, HTTPS was previously bypassed in non-browser software, in Apple’s iOS and OS X, in Android apps, in Android apps again, in banking apps, and even in VPN apps.”

    https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/10/severe-flaw-in-wpa2-protocol-leaves-wi-fi-traffic-open-to-eavesdropping/

Other

  • Foxconn Deal in Wisconsin Hits Snag Over Guarantees

    The Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. delayed a vote Tuesday to give final approval to a contract that would provide the Taiwanese firm with $3 billion in economic incentives.

    On Wednesday, a Democratic state representative who opposed the deal told a local Wisconsin news organization the delay was over a “nuclear bomb” in the contract that wouldn’t sufficiently protect taxpayers in the case that Foxconn didn’t fulfill its promises, sparking concerns the deal could be in trouble.

    WEDC CEO Mark Hogan said the delay was to ensure the deal was done right. “WEDC continues to do due diligence on a complex deal,” said WEDC CEO Mark Hogan in a statement. “We will take the time necessary to ensure taxpayers are protected and Foxconn is able to create tens of thousands of family-supporting jobs in Wisconsin.”

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/foxconn-deal-in-wisconsin-hits-snag-over-guarantees-1508353362

  • Apple and GE announce deep partnership

    Apple and GE have committed to build a set of development tools and to develop apps together using Apple’s design sensibility and deep understanding of iOS, but the deal doesn’t stop there. Apple’s sales team will also push the GE Predix platform with its industrial customers when it makes sense, and GE has committed to standardizing on the iPhone and iPad for its 330,000 employees, while offering the Mac as a computer choice. All of this adds up to a level of cooperation we have not seen in Apple’s previous enterprise partnerships.

    https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/18/apple-and-ge-announce-deep-partnership/?ncid=rss

  • IBM Revenue Drops Again, But Mainframe, AI Units Beat Expectations

    Revenue was down 0.4% from a year earlier to $19.15 billion, a minor slide but enough to make it the 22nd consecutive quarter of year-over-year declines.

    Still, revenue from the hardware division, which rolled out new mainframe computers over the summer, marked its first gain from a year earlier since 2015.

    Profit fell 4.5% to $2.73 billion. Margins narrowed over all and in most business units, though progressively less since the beginning of the year—a hopeful sign of stabilization.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/ibm-has-another-revenue-drop-during-its-transition-1508273024
    IBM’s stock surge is one for the history books

    The stock IBM, +8.86% rocketed $12.99, or 8.9%, Wednesday to the highest close in nearly six months, after the information technology company reported third-quarter profit and revenue the beat Wall Street expectations.

    Beating profit projections wasn’t a surprise, since IBM has now done so for 12 straight quarters, but the stock rallying after results is a relative rarity. And Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty said the latest beat marks “a real inflection point,” as it came amid “low investor expectations” and helps support the belief that the gross margin trend is now rising.

    http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ibms-stock-surge-is-one-for-the-history-books-2017-10-18

  • Samsung vice chairman quits amid leadership ‘crisis’

    Kwon has been the face of Samsung after Jay Y. Lee was arrested and eventually found guilty of bribery and embezzlement. Lee, who was sentenced to five years in prison, apparently bribed officials to ensure that the controversial merger of two Samsung-controlled companies would go smoothly in spite of shareholders’ disapproval. While he was only a vice chairman when he was arrested, Lee was considered the company’s de facto leader after his father, Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee, suffered a heart attack in 2014. The younger Lee is responsible for conjuring up the company’s long-term strategic vision.

    Samsung had a great quarter, thanks mainly to the increasing demand for memory chips with large storage capacities. The mobile division’s performance also got a boost from Galaxy Note 8’s sales, but we won’t know by how much until the full earnings come out. If the conglomerate wants to top Q3’s profit, though, it has to find a way to solve the “unprecedented crisis” it’s going through.

    https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/13/samsung-vice-chairman-quits-earnings-guidance-q3-2017/

Photo: rawpixel.com