IBM had a week of making excuses: First CEO Ginni Rometty had to defend Watson medical after reports from oncologists that the system is incorrectly diagnosing medical issues. Then the company had to defend the lack of growth in blockchain by essentially saying companies need to invest first and hope to see results. Finally, the company is failing to meet their hiring targets in Baton Rouge and are having a job fair – but someone needs to question why the company has a consulting hub in Baton Rouge in the first place.
Acquisitions
- Amazon Web Services Acquires CloudEndure – Confirmed
“As an AWS Advanced Technology Partner since 2016, CloudEndure has long joined forces with AWS to help customers future-proof their businesses. This acquisition expands our ability to deliver innovative and flexible migration, backup, and disaster recovery solutions.”
Israeli media outlets estimate the deal to be worth about $200 to $250 million Dollars.
https://esellercafe.com/amazon-web-services-acquires-cloudendure-confirmed/
- Alibaba acquires German big data startup Data Artisans for $103M
Alibaba has paid €90 million ($103 million) to acquire Data Artisans, a Berlin-based startup that provides distributed systems and large-scale data streaming services for enterprises.
Data Artisans was founded in 2014 by the team leading the development of Apache Flink, an open source large-scale data processing technology. The startup offers its own dA Platform, with open source Apache Flink and Application Manager, to enterprise customers that include Netflix, ING, Uber and Alibaba itself.
Artificial Intelligence
- IBM CEO: Watson has not failed
“Watson for Oncology is doing very well — very well,” Ms. Rometty told STAT during a photo opportunity at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas where she delivered a keynote address. STAT has requested interviews with Ms. Rometty and other company executives for months with no success.
In 2018, STAT reported several controversies involving IBM’s health division, including one of its physician customers calling Watson for Oncology a “piece of sh–,” and numerous employee layoffs. A key complaint about Watson for Oncology, which offers cancer treatment recommendations, is that it’s biased toward American treatment methods. However, IBM said it plans to add regional treatment guidelines to Watson for Oncology, as well as real-world data on patient outcomes, to boost user satisfaction.
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/artificial-intelligence/ibm-ceo-watson-has-not-failed.html
- Microsoft Could Help Kroger Counter Amazon’s Growth
Kroger recently partnered with Microsoft to test out two data-driven connected stores. The two renovated stores will use a smart retail system powered by Internet of Things (IoT) sensors and digital shelves, which display prices, promotions, and nutritional information on screens in front of products. Kroger introduced the shelves, which are already being used in nearly 100 stores, last year. The test stores will help guide shoppers through the aisles to the products they want to buy.
All those devices will be tethered to Microsoft’s cloud platform Azure, which is already Kroger’s preferred cloud platform. Microsoft and Kroger will also jointly market a commercial retail as a service (RaaS) product to the grocer’s industry peers.
https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/01/11/microsoft-could-help-kroger-counter-amazons-growth.aspx
After Amazon-Whole Foods, Microsoft-Kroger: The Grocery Revolution Is Happening“The two outfitted Kroger locations, in Monroe, Ohio and Redmond, Wash., will feature digital shelving displays with real-time price updates and product information, as well as digital advertisements personalized to each shopper,” CNBC published on Monday.
The news of the Microsoft-Kroger partnership dovetails with a report from RBC Capital Markets indicating that Amazon’s cashierless grocery stores take in 50% more revenue than conventional counterparts. Amazon has said it may open up as many as 3,000 Amazon Go stores by 2021, suggesting the possibility of a $4.5 billion business.
Cloud
- Microsoft wins $1.76 billion defense contract: Pentagon
Microsoft Corp has been awarded a five-year contract worth $1.76 billion for delivering enterprise services for the Defense Department, Coast Guard and intelligence services, the Pentagon said on Friday.
- AWS gives open source the middle finger
AWS argues that while MongoDB is great at what it does, its customers have found it hard to build fast and highly available applications on the open-source platform that can scale to multiple terabytes and hundreds of thousands of reads and writes per second. So what the company did was build its own document database, but made it compatible with the Apache 2.0 open source MongoDB 3.6 API.
If you’ve been following the politics of open source over the last few months, you’ll understand that the optics of this aren’t great. It’s also no secret that AWS has long been accused of taking the best open-source projects and re-using and re-branding them without always giving back to those communities.
https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/09/aws-gives-open-source-the-middle-finger/
- AWS, Coupa Expand IT Spend Visibility For Corporates
Coupa users can link their accounts to Amazon Web Services to automatically have AWS invoices sent to the Coupa platform. The integration means companies using both Coupa and AWS can more quickly process those invoices, while gaining enhanced visibility into their spend with AWS services.
The integration deploys Coupa’s InvoiceSmash solution, which accelerates invoice processing and payments for users, aimed at enabling companies to capture early payment discounts from their suppliers.
https://www.pymnts.com/news/b2b-payments/2019/aws-coupa-it-spend-visibility-management/
Software/SaaS
- Oracle inks stadium naming rights deal with San Francisco Giants
The deal appears to be one of the richest of its kind in North American professional sports, which seemingly would trickle through to the Giants’ product on the field. The team already boasted the second-highest payroll in the majors last season at around $203 million.
Kevin Bartram, principal of Bartram Partnerships, a brand sponsorship consultancy, told Bloomberg the $200 million to $350 million price tag “seems very fair.” He was one of the consultants who brokered the Pacific Telesis-Giants partnership, according to the news outlet.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/01/09/oracle-inks-stadium-naming-rights-deal-with-san-francisco-giants/
Is this the best use of Oracle’s money at the moment? - Why more people aren’t using blockchain, according to IBM
“We believe that blockchain is a team sport. For a blockchain-based solution to work successfully, it requires multiple entities to come together in a symbiotic relationship and agree on common principles, operating model and governance,” Parzygnat says. “The very nature of blockchain-based solutions require the vision and leadership of a governing body to convene the ecosystem in a common blockchain-based network. Then it requires each enterprise member to acknowledge their core competencies and compete in the market by defending or enhancing them.”
https://www.finder.com.au/why-more-people-arent-using-blockchain-according-to-ibm
Translation: “Pay for the roads first, and maybe we will built them”
Other
- Chinese Huawei Executive Is Charged With Espionage in Poland
The Chinese national’s detention follows the December arrest of Huawei’s chief financial officer in Canada, at the U.S.’s request, on allegations the company violated U.S. sanctions on Iran. Unlike that case, the Polish charges relate directly to suspicions by Washington and other Western governments that China could use Huawei equipment, or its employees, to help it spy on foreign governments and companies.
Polish officials said Huawei itself wasn’t charged with any wrongdoing. They didn’t detail the charges or say whether any sensitive information was compromised. Officials also arrested a Polish national on the same charge.
- Google Nears Win in Europe Over ‘Right to Be Forgotten’
At issue in the case is the right, established by the court in 2014, for EU residents to demand that search engines remove links containing personal information—such as a home address—from searches for their names. Under the 2014 ruling, search engines must balance those requests against the public’s right to access a link associated with the searched-for name, taking into account, for instance, whether the person is a public figure.
Maciej Szpunar, an advocate general for the court, argued in Thursday’s nonbinding opinion that if the EU orders removal of content from websites accessed outside the region, there is a danger that other jurisdictions would use their laws to block information from being accessible within the EU.
- Apple’s trillion-dollar market cap was always a false idol
It’s worth noting that Apple has hardly been in alone taking a huge hit on its stock price, especially tech stocks, which have been taking a beating since November on Wall Street. Want to talk a trillion dollars, how about the biggest names in tech losing a trillion (that’s with a T, folks) in value in one stretch in November. When Apple halted trading last week to announce lower than expected revenue, the stock dove even further, as it confirmed the worst fears of investors.
Worse, Chinese consumers have driven iPhone sales just as the Chinese economy has hit a massive speed bump this year. In June, Reuters reported shockingly weak growth. In November, Bloomberg reported that the Chinese economy was slowing down long before the president started a trade war.
https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/07/apples-trillion-dollar-market-cap-was-always-a-false-idol/
- IBM now heading to Lafayette to recruit workers for Baton Rouge hub
The company will conduct a career fair Jan. 19 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at South Louisiana Community College in the Devalcourt Building at 320 Devalcourt St., a news release from Louisiana Economic Development said. IBM is looking to fill 75 available positions in Baton Rouge, the release said.
IBM fell short on its promise to create 800 jobs in Baton Rouge by 2017 in exchange for state incentives. The company reached an agreement with the state to meet that goal next year and will have to pay a penalty of $10,000 for each job below the threshold of 800.
https://neworleanscitybusiness.com/blog/2019/01/11/ibm-now-heading-to-lafayette-to-recruit-workers-for-baton-rouge-hub/
No offense to Louisiana – but it is an odd place to start a work hub. Yes, there are colleges (36 4-year schools), but it isn’t overflowing with students compared to other states, and it doesn’t seem like people want to stay there.
IBM laying off more than 300 workers in RTPThe jobs, which were part of an IBM subsidiary called Seterus, will be permanently terminated “no earlier than March 11,” according to the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification on Jan. 9.
The 310 job cuts come a week after IBM agreed to sell Seterus to the mortgage services company the Mr. Cooper Group.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article224283465.html
Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash
